Hermione Granger the Mage
by Supersilver46
Summary: Hermione Granger is your average mage, who wants nothing more to do than grind for a whole bunch of experience points. Of course, the world isn't so keen on letting her have her way, so it looks like it's up to her to force it to her will...
1. Chapter 1

"So why are you giving this to her for her birthday?" Hermione's father (whose name had been lost to the void) said as he rose his eyebrow, "You know she doesn't care much for video games."

"You mean you've never actually let her play a video game," Hermione's Uncle said, "Anyway look at her go, she's doing great!"

"Oh, it looks like I've died," Hermione said as she dropped the controller and looked at her mother, "Does this mean I'm done playing now?"

Hermione's father smirked as he watched the red plumber plummet to the bottom of the pit, "Man she's doing so well, isn't she?"

Hermione's uncle frowned, "Don't worry I still have a bunch of back up ideas," He said before he turned to Hermione, "Hey Hermione you like fictional books right?"

Hermione nodded.

"Do you like the ones with knights and dragons?"

"I think she's a little too old for those kinds of books," Hermione's mother said, "She's been reading War and Peace lately and-"

"Yeah that's nice, I don't really care," Hermione's uncle talked over Hermione's mother, "Anyway I got this game..."

Hermione and her mother groaned at the same time.

"...And I'm sure you'll like it, it's called Dragon Quest 4."

Hermione's uncle turned the system off, took the cartridge out of the game system, and placed the new game into the console.

Hermione's father wondered if he should've been concerned when the title music for the game began to play. He was then very concerned when Hermione began to play the game for more than an hour, which then stretched into two, which stretched into three...

Hermione's uncle smirked at Hermione's father, "So what was that about her not liking games?"

.

On July 30th, 1991, Minerva McGonagall knocked on the door of the home she was visiting for today, she'd gone through quite a bit of muggle homes and this last one was her final stop. The door opened up a crack and a man with disheveled hair opened the door.

"Yes, how can I help you?" the man said as he rubbed his eyes.

"Ah yes, I am a professor at Hogwarts, my name is Minerva McGonagall, I trust you got my letter?" McGonagall said.

The man nodded his head, "Yeah, uh about that could you maybe not send those letters, they make our daughter rather excited..."

"Well she should be excited," McGonagall said, "She's a witch after all!"

"Mage."

"Excuse me?" McGonagall rose an eyebrow.

"Hermione's been calling herself a mage, there's a difference apparently," The man said as he rested his head against the door, "Well since you're here, I guess you want to meet her?"

"Yes, that was the purpose of my visit..." McGonagall frowned as she noticed the man hadn't even reacted to the fact she had just called his daughter a witch, "You seem to be taking this...rather calmly."

"Oh, well we've known about magic for a while now," The man said in a matter of fact tone, "It wasn't that hard to get used to it."

The man ignored her shocked look and called out to his daughter, "Hey Hermione, there's a mage who wants to meet you!"

"Coming!" McGonagall heard a young girl's voice from inside the house, before she heard the sound of someone running down the stairs. Soon the young girl came into view, wearing a yellow dress, a silver belt, and a blue cape along with blue gloves and a pointy blue hat that rested on top of her head.

"Oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm meeting another mage!" The girl shouted, "Oh, what level are you at right now?"

"Level?" McGonagll asked.

"Yeah, your level, I've been stuck at 11 for a while now, but I bet you're at level 60 or something!"

"She's been grinding the worms out back for about a year," Hermione's father chimed in, "You wouldn't believe the mess that's in our backyard now."

.

.

.

"So Professor McGonagall, what spells do you teach at Hogwarts?" Hermione asked as the two of them sat in the kitchen. Her father had trudged up the stairs to get some sleep, which left the two of them alone downstairs. "Do you teach how to shoot lightning? Or how to teleport? Or how to make explosions? Or-"

"One question at a time Ms. Granger," Professor McGonagall said. "Though I will say that we can teach you to do at least apparate."

"What's an apparate?" Hermione asked.

"It's what you muggles call as 'Teleportation'" Professor McGonagall said.

"Oh that seems cool, but you seriously can shoot lightning or cause explosions?"

"We know how cause explosions, but you won't learn that until your fourth year, and as for lightning..." Professor McGonagall trailed off, "Well, we don't particularly like to use that spell, it brings back some bad memories..."

"Really, what kind of bad memories?" Hermione asked.

 _It brings back memories of a megalomaniac that tried to wipe out your race_ , is what Professor McGonagall thought, but she didn't want to stress the young girl to the point where she decided not to go to Hogwarts, so she decided to lie instead.

"It's a very complex spell that causes more harm than good," Professor McGonagall said, "So we prefer to stay away from spells that are too much of a danger to be properly used."

Hermione frowned, "Oh I see..."

The girl fell silent after that, and Professor McGonagall cleared her throat.

"Well if you have no more questions, I will see you to-"

"Wait!" Hermione shouted as she interrupted Professor McGonagall, "I have a question, do you use wands or staves?"

Professor McGonagall rose an eyebrow, "We use wands," she said, "They help us concentrate our magic and-"

"Hold on a second Professor, I'll be right back!"

Professor McGonagall blinked in surprise as Hermione practically leapt out of her seat and charged up the stairs.

"Hey Dad!" Professor McGonagall heard Hermione shout, "Where'd you put my staff?!"

"It should be right next to that armlet of transmutation you found!" Professor McGonagall heard Hermione's father shout back. "If it isn't there it should be behind your bookshelf!"

"Okay, thanks Dad!"

 _What?_

"Oh I see that you're confused." Professor McGonagall heard a voice say behind her, and she turned to see that a woman holding groceries had unlocked the front door and had walked into the kitchen. "Don't worry I just gave up and accepted it after a while."

The woman then set the groceries down on the counter and turned to give Professor McGonagall a handshake, "I'm Hermione's mother, it's nice to meet you..."

"I'm Professor McGonagall," the professor said as she introduced herself, "I teach at Hogwarts, it's a school for witches and wizards."

"Oh I see." Hermione's mother seemed to be frozen on her face as she gripped Professor McGonagall's hand with a little more force than necessary, and pulled the old woman towards her, "Please help us!"

"W-what do you mean, are you in trouble?" Professor McGonagall said, "Is someone threatening you?"

"No it isn't that it's about Hermione-" Hermione's mother began to say, but she cut herself off as Hermione climbed back down the stairs, holding a large red staff with a red glass orb acting as the 'head' of the staff in her right hand, and a silver candle in her left.

"Oh hello mom," Hermione said as she looked curiously at her mother, "I thought you said you'd be gone for two hours, I really could've used your help during my grind session."

"Ah well you see..." Hermione's mother fidgeted on the spot, "I thought it would take me much longer to finish my work, but I'm here now so that has to make up for something, right?"

"...Well, whatever." Hermione said before she turned to Professor McGonagall, "Anyway this is what I wanted to show you."

Hermione then put the candle on the kitchen table, and pointed her staff at the candle. She closed her eyes, concentrated...and then fired a ball of fire from the tip of her wand at the candle, setting it on fire.

Professor McGonagall looked at Hermione, then the flaming candle that was quickly extinguished by the sprinklers on the roof, and then she looked at Hermione once again.

"Whoops, looks like I over did it a bit..." Hermione said as she rubbed the back of her neck.


	2. Professor McGonagall and Dragon Quest

"How did you do that?" Professor McGonagall immediately rounded Hermione "You cast Incendio without even using the incantation!"

"Oh so that's what it's called?" Hermione said, "I've always called it Frizz, I think that's a cooler name than something like, 'Incendio'"

"What, no that's not-" Professor McGonagall shook her head, "Nevermind, that spell you're using is something we teach the fifth years, I don't understand how a muggleborn could learn it so easily."

"Oh, she's been able to do that for a year now," Hermione's mother said, "It was surprising the first time she did it, but we got used to it."

"She's been able to do it for a year?" Professor McGonagall parroted as her mind raced, "When did she do it for the first time?"

"Well it was during our camping trip..."

.

 _"I don't think you're doing it right," Hermione's mother said as she and Hermione stood off to the side and watched Hermione's father try (and fail) to start a camp fire, "I don't think that you can even start a fire that way."_

 _"I know what I'm doing honey!" Hermione's father said as he continued to pile branches together and tried to set it on fire with a lighter, "I 'm pretty sure this is the way the way they do it in the movies!"_

 _"This isn't a movie though," Hermione's mother deadpanned, "This is real life."_

 _"You never know, maybe someone up there is reading our thoughts and words," Hermione's father cursed as the wind picked up and extinguished his lighter, "Sort of like reading a book-or fanfiction!"_

 _"Did you hit your head dad?" Hermione said. "You hit the ground pretty hard when you tripped on that rock..."_

 _"I'm fine sweetie!"_

 _"You know that you need old branches if you're going to start a fire," Hermione's mother said, "New ones aren't going to-"_

 _"I've got it!" Hermione's father shouted as he stood upright, "I just need to get oil, pour it on the branches, and then set it on fire!"_

 _"That sounds like a horrible idea."_

 _"Hold on, I'll be right back!" Hermione's father shouted as he dashed towards the RV that was parked near the campsite._

 _A cold draft drifted through the air, making Hermione shiver._

 _"You know, if I could cast a spell, it would make this go by a lot faster," Hermione said, "I think Frizz could definitely help us out."_

 _"Please don't bring up things from that game again," Hermione's mother said, "We brought you here to get away from the books and games."_

 _"Yeah but it would be so easy to light a fire if I could summon it..." Hermione said as a flame appeared in her hand, "And then throw it at that bundle of branches..."_

 _Hermione made a throwing motion and then the ball of flame that had appeared in her hand lazily flew through the air before landing in the bundle of branches, setting them on fire._

 _"..."_

 _"..."_

 _Hermione and her mother looked at each other, and then back at the roaring fire._

 _"Oh, you got the fire going already," Hermione's father said as he climbed out of the RV, holding a gallon of gas in his hands, "I suppose I don't need this then."_

 _"Di-did you just?" Hermione's mother looked at Hermione with wide eyes._

 _Hermione concentrated, and a ball of fire appeared in her hands, "N-no way..." Hermione said before she cheered, "I'm a mage! This is so cool right mom?!"_

 _Hermione's mother's eyes rolled to the back of her head, and she collapsed..._

 _.  
._  
"So basically, that's how she learned how to cast that spell," Hermione's mother said as she made two cups of coffee, "After that, she started doing more and more magic during the past few months."

"How did you learn to cast such a spell Ms. Granger?" Professor McGonagall said after a brief period of silence, "Did someone teach you?"

"Well in a way, I was taught how to cast Frizzle," Hermione said, "But it wasn't really a person who taught me."

"So how were you taught?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"I was taught by a game I like to play." Hermione said.

"A...game?"

"Yeah, it's called Dragon Quest, here let me show you!"

Hermione quickly dashed into the living room, turned the TV on, and placed the cartridge into the NES before turning it on. Professor McGonagall walked into the living room and watched as Hermione began to explain the basics of the game to her.

"So there's a whole bunch of spells you can learn in the game," Hermione explained, "There's healing spells, buffing spells, elemental spells..."

Professor McGonagall tuned her out as she watched the girl play the game, her thoughts rapidly began to spin out of control.

"M-Ms. Granger, are the ones who made this game...muggles?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"What's a muggle?" Hermione asked.

"They're people who can't use magic," Professor McGonagall explained.

"Oh. Yeah I think they're muggles, why?"

So then that settled it then,Professor McGonagall thought to herself, Either these muggles somehow gained the knowledge of the spells the wizarding community used, or a wizard was purposefully leaking spells in order to make a profit.

"Ms. Granger, are the people who made this game from Britain?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"No, they live in Japan," Hermione said. "Why?"

...Perhaps it was more sinister than she had thought, maybe the Japanese were using this 'game' as a way to filter out muggleborns from the muggles. Perhaps they were using the 'game' as a training simulator, so that their school could claim their students were more advanced than the ones at Hogwarts, which would draw more people in, which meant that their approval rating would skyrocket. Or they were using in order to bolster their forces with people who could easily cast without using a wand, which would be catastrophic. She'd have to inform Dumbledore about this, the Japanese were making a potential power play, which would cause them to have a significant advantage over the other countries.

"Well then, it seems it is time for me to go," Professor McGonagall said, "It was a pleasure to meet such a talented young girl."

"Oh, you're leaving already?" Hermione asked, "But I didn't get to show you this really cool fight!"

"Perhaps you can show me another time," Professor McGonagall smiled, before she turned and left the Granger home and teleported to Hogwarts.

Professor McGonagall then quickly climbed the stairs to the Headmasters Office, and then threw the doors to the office open.

"Albus!" She shouted to the headmaster who was seated behind his desk.

"Oh hello Minerva," Dumbledore said, "Did you finish-"

"The Japanesse are using a 'video game' to create super soldiers!" Professor McGonagall interrupted him.

"...What?"


	3. Harry and Hermione

Harry Potter was having a pretty good day, all things considered. Of course there was the fact that he'd gotten lost at the station, but then he'd run into Ron Weasely and his family, and things had worked themselves out after that. Of course, there was that encounter with a blond git named Draco Malfoy, but he'd run off after Harry had told him that he knew who the 'wrong sort' were, and then nothing had happened after that. He and Ron were sitting and eating some of the sweets he had ordered, when suddenly the door to the compartment swung open and a girl dressed in odd clothing stepped into the room, dragging an awkward looking boy with sandy hair behind her.

"Hello there, my name is Hermione Granger, and this is Neville Longbottom," The girl who had introduced herself and her friend said, "We're on a very important quest, have either of you seen a toad?"

"Uh no, I haven't seen a toad," Harry said, as he looked over to Ron.

"I haven't seen one around here, maybe you should try somewhere else." Ron said as he stared at the girl, "What are you wearing anyway?"

"Isn't it obvious, I'm wearing my mage outfit," Hermione said as she rolled her eyes, "Seriously, haven't you seen a mage before?"

"A mage?" Harry asked, "You mean you're a wi-?"

"No, no, no I'm not a witch I'm a mage," Hermione said, "There's a difference you know."

"Really?"

"Yeah, one's an evil hag that wants to steal your soul, and the other is a beautiful hero, like me."

"You certainly think highly of yourself." Ron said.

"Well that's mainly because I can actually back myself up," Hermione said in a matter of fact tone, "There are tons of other mages who can't even begin to do that."

"Oh I see..." Harry said as he mentally marked the girl down on the same list he had placed Draco, "Do you mind demonstrating for us?"

"No I don't mind," Hermione said, "Especially if a Hero such as yourself asks me to demonstrate."

"But I'll need a target first...how about that rat on your friends leg?"

"What?!" Ron shouted as he hugged his pet rat close to his chest, "I'm not going to let you practice on Scabbers!"

"Don't worry, he'll be fine as long as the spell works," Hermione said as she pulled out a red staff from...somewhere, "Now hold still, I'm not too great at aiming with this."

Orange energy formed on the tip of the girl's staff, and she pointed her staff at the rat before firing off a beam of energy that enveloped the rat. The rat then began to grow, as it suddenly transformed from a rat to a fully grown adult male that was sitting on Ron's lap.

"Uh..." The man said, "Squeak?"

"Huh well that's a bit unexpected," Hermione said as the man slid off of Ron's lap, "I wasn't expecting that your rat was actually a human in disguise..."

"Bloody Hell, I've even slept with him from time to time!" Ron shouted as he backed away from the man.

"Well look on the bright side," The man said as he stood up and gave Ron a big smile, "At least we kept each other warm!"

Ron shivered in disgust.

"Anyway, now that my cover's been blown..." The man picked up the wand that Ron had dropped on his seat, "I suppose I'll have to kill all of you."

"K-Kill us?!" Neville stuttered as his face became pale, "W-we're just kids!"

"Yeah well I guess it sucks to be you then," The man continued, "But if I kill you all, I'm pretty sure the dark lord will give me a promotion or something."

"You shouldn't kill people for a promotion!"

"Wait Neville," Hermione interrupted, "Do you know what this whole situation is?"

Neville turned to look at her in confusion, "Um, isn't it a hostage situation?"

"It's more than that though," Hermione said as her eyes began to gleam in wonder, "It's the cutscene leading up to a boss fight!"

"What?"

"Listen here um, what's your name?"

"It's Peter Pettigrew, but my friends call me Wormtail." Peter Pettigrew said.

"I think I'll just call you Wormtail then," Hermione said, "That just seems more of a fitting name for a boss."

"Actually couldn't you just call me Peter? I'd really appreciate it if-"

"Anyway Wormtail, your day of reckoning is here!" Hermione shouted in a dramatic fashion, "We'll make sure to beat you up, and make sure that law enforcement gets you!"

"Heh." Wormtail laughed, "Just try it little girl, I've got more experience than you, nothing you do could phase me!"

.

.

.

.

.

"What's with all the shouting?" Percy Weasley asked himself as he walked down the hall towards a specific room. He'd gotten complaints about the people in the room making a loud racket that was disturbing them, so Percy, being the utterly noble guy that he was, decided to volunteer himself to see what was happening. He definitely wasn't doing it to get some 'points' as his younger twin brothers so eloquently stated. No, it was just that as a perfect it was his duty to make sure that order and sanity was kept in the Gryffindor house, and he'd be damned if he'd let his youngest brother get away with whatever it was he was doing.

Percy was about to knock on the door, when it was suddenly blown off of its hinges, and a fat man was thrown against the wall before falling unconscious

"What the?" Percy muttered as he looked into the room to see that it was a complete and utter mess, the windows had been blown out at some point, there were scorch marks all over the wall, and bizarrely sheets of ice were scattered on the ground.

"Oh hey Percy!" Ron yelled, "Did you know that Scabbers was actually a fat man in disguise?"

Percy's eye twitched as he looked on the man who was dressed in rags on the ground, and then back to Ron.

"Yeah, I had that same look on my face too," Ron said, "Especially when I realized he's probably slept with most of us."


	4. A Q and A session

Kingsley Shacklebolt sighed as he watched a group of Aurors wheel a semi-comatose Peter Pettigrew out of the train and off to headquarters to get interrogated. After all it was odd that a 'dead' man would suddenly turn up alive and well as a 'rat' for more than ten years. This of course meant that the number of legal issues they'd have to jump through with Pettigrew would mean that there'd be mountains of paperwork and complaints waiting for him once he got back to the office. Not to mention that Pettigrew's survival changed everything about what they knew about the night Harry Potter's parents were killed, and the events that had happened after that.

Kingsley stepped into the train and headed towards a specific room, and greeted one of the Auror's who were standing guard near the door. Kingsley nodded to the guard before he walked into the room and was immediately hit with a cool breeze that drafted from out the window. On one of the seats, a young girl was idly swinging her legs back and forth before she turned to look at him.

Kingsley pulled out a folder containing a case report, which was based off the testimonies the four other witnesses had given. The oldest of the four was rather...excited to tell them his testimony, and there were many things that he had to mark out that was irrelevant to the case at hand.

"So let me get this straight," Kingsley Shacklebot said to the young girl who was currently seated in front of him as he read off of the case report, "Instead of getting help, you decided to engage a dangerous wizard in combat."

"Furthermore, you also decided to hit him with variety of spells which included Bombarda, Incendio, and Immobolus," Kingsley continued but then the girl who was sitting in front of him rose her hand into the air.

"Actually, can I interrupt?" Hermione asked, "The spells I used were Bang, Frizz, and Crack respectively, I just find those names a lot cooler than what you called them."

Kingsley sighed and decided to trudge on regardless, "After which, you ended up blowing him up, sending him through the door." He then closed the folder that held the case report and looked at the girl seriously, "Do you have any idea how much danger you could have been in?"

"Of course I did," Hermione countered, "In a boss battle there's about a 50% chance you're going to critted, and have to start over."

"What does 'Critted' even mean?" Kingsley asked.

"It means getting critical hit, but I wouldn't really worry about that," Hermione said, "I have a pretty decent luck stat, though it need a little bit of work."

"Well I agree that you were rather lucky," Kingsley said, "Peter Pettigrew is a member of the former Death Eaters, if he wanted to he could've cast a killing spell at you."

"Oh a killing spell, so you mean Whack right?" Hermione asked.

"What is- nevermind, don't answer that," Kingsley said as Hermione opened her mouth to explain, "I just want to make it very clear to you that you put the lives of yourself and your friends in jeopardy."

"I could handle it just fine though," Hermione said, "It wasn't even that hard to take him out, it was really easy actually."

Kingsley sighed, "Look just don't do anything dangerous like that, there are people more experienced than you who can handle this kind of stuff."

"Yeah, but those 'experienced' people weren't really on the train," Hermione said, "Were they?"

"..." Kingsley stayed silent as the door behind him opened, and an Auror poked their head in.

"Um sir, are you done questioning the witness?" they said. Kingsley nodded, and the Auror motioned for Hermione to follow him out of the room...

.

Most of the students were undoubtedly shaken up after the whole affair was done and over with. The Aurors had left, and the first years were brought to Hogwarts by boat while the older students had gotten to school by using the carriages. Ron in particular couldn't help but sneak glances at the girl who'd turned his rat into a man. Or well, turned him back into a man, he was still somewhat confused by the whole thing, figuring out that a pet that had been passed down from brother to brother was actually a fugitive in disguise made him shiver in disgust.

On the one hand, he was glad that she'd done it, who knows how long Scabbe- Petteigrew would've acted as his pet, so for that he was slightly grateful. On the other hand...

Ron took another glance before turning around before she could see him. Eventually they were led into the Great Hall, and Dumbledore smiled warmly at them, as if he sensed the students unease.

"Greetings first years!" Headmaster Dumbledore greeted the students who entered the Great Hall, "And welcome to Hogwarts!"

Ron sighed in relief as he saw that there wasn't any monster they had to fight to get sorted. It looked like his brothers were lying to him, again. Which was great for him, given the whole interrogation thing he had to go through had tired him out. He'd never really seen anyone effortlessly use spells like the way that girl had, and the lack of control over said spells made him feel a bit nervous, given that he was really close to getting his head blown off when one of her spells missed. Hopefully, she'd end up in a different house than him, he'd make sure to stay far away from her, preferably about a mile away.

"Granger, Hermione!" He heard the girl's name get called and saw her walk towards the hat. He also noted, that for some reason she hadn't changed out of the ridiculous clothes she'd been wearing earlier in the day, while everyone else was already in their uniforms. The professor who held the hat in her hands sighed as she saw Hermione approach, but didn't say anything as Hermione sat on the stool. Hermione took her hat off and placed the sorting hat on her head, and it immediately shouted...

 _Please don't be Gryffindor, please don't be Gryffindor, please-_

"Gryffindor!"

Ron's face paled as the girl removed the sorting hat and put her other hat on before heading towards the Gryffindor table. Eventually as the line shortened, his name was called. As Ron placed the hat over his head he desperately hoped that the hat wouldn't place him in Gryffindor, heck he'd be grateful to even be in Hufflepuff!

 _'Hm?'_ The Sorting hat said/asked _'Are you sure you want to end up in Hufflepuff?'_

 _'Yes!'_ Ron pleaded _'Well no actually, any house would do!'_

 _'So you want me to put you in the house you'll do the best in?'_

 _'Yes!'_

 _'You're sure about this then? You really want to end up in the house where you'll do the best?'_

 _'Of course I do! I won't even complain about the house you choose!'_

 _'Well then in that case it better be-'_

"Gryffindor!"

Ron honestly felt like crying...


	5. Hermione and Neville

Hermione watched as Harry Potter was eventually called up for the sorting, and it took a while for the hat to decide where Harry should go, before it eventually shouted,

"Gryffindor!"

As Harry walked towards the table Hermione smiled and tried to greet him in a semi-normal fashion.

"Hello Harry," Hermione said to Harry as he walked over to the Gryffindor table, "How are you doing?"

"Um, fine." Harry said as he gave Hermione an odd look, "Why are you asking?"

"Oh I was just worried about you, it's not everyday you find the person who indirectly lead to your parents death," Hermione said, "I'd figured you might to angst and-"

"And this conversation is over." Harry said before he moved to across the table to sit by Ron.

"Oh, well then I guess we'll talk later then!" Hermione called out to him, and sighed as he ignored her. Now what was she supposed to do? She'd wanted to talk to him and see what kind of spells he'd learn, but it didn't look like she'd really get the chance to do that now. Luckily though, she knew someone else she could talk to, and so she moved to sit next to Neville who had been talking about his family to some of the other Gryffindors.

"Hey there," Hermione said as she sat down, "Did you find your toad?"

Neville nodded, "Yes, one of the Aurors found him for me."

Hermione internally sighed, she'd wanted to gain the exp from that quest...

"Oh, speaking of the Aurors," Hermione said, "Did they interview you on the train too?"

Neville opened his mouth to say something, but then the Headmaster cleared his throat and began to speak.

"Just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you." Dumbledore said, "First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well."

"I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors." Dumbeldore continued, "Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch."

"And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a most painful death."

Some of the older students seemed to be confused by that last statement, and the professors seated next to Dumbledore looked rather odd as well. On the one hand, it seemed a perfectly safe thing to do to listen to the Headmaster's warnings and avoid the places he had mentioned, on the other hand though...

"Hey Neville," Hermione whispered, "Do you want to check out what's on the third-floor corridor?"

Neville's eyes widened and he whispered back to her, "We can't do that, the Headmaster just told us it's out of bounds!"

"Aren't you curious though?" Hermione asked, "What do you think he could be hiding up there?"

"I don't think that-"

"Oh, maybe it's a treasure chest full of gold, or an actual armlet of transmutation, or maybe it's a weapon!"

"Hermione I don't think it's a good idea to go up there," Neville tried to reason with her, " the Headmaster said to avoid unless you want to die a horrible death!"

"That's probably because there's a lot of high level monsters up there," Hermione said, "Maybe I should go grind in the forest first, then head up to the third floor corridor."

"It should probably work out if I grind for about an hour or two for about a week..."

"Are you even listening to me?" Neville asked. "Hermione?"

"Huh?" Hermione looked over at Neville, "Oh sorry, I was trying to work out my schedule."

"Hermione, if you go and do what you just said I-I'll tell on you, and then you'll be expelled." Neville said. "This isn't a game you know, I've heard rumors about the Forbidden Forest-"

"Oh, so that's what it's called? It sounds really ominous for a first dungeon." Hermione interrupted Neville. Neville ignored her and decided to continue on,

"And I've heard that it's full of beasts that can easily slice you in half, or poison you, or-"

"Okay I think I get it Neville," Hermione said as she placed her hand on Neville's shoulder, "I won't go to the forest to grind, and I won't go up to the third floor corridor."

"Really?" Neville said, "You promise you won't do anything that'll get you killed?"

"I promise." Hermione said, I promise I won't tell you I'm going there anyway, Hermione thought to herself. Eventually, the entire hall was united in song before they were sent to their respective dorms. Ron's brother(whose name she couldn't remember) led them up a complex series of stairs until the came upon a talking painting that asked for the password. Ron's brother told the painting the password, and the girls were led up to the female dorm, while the boys were led up to the male dorm. Hermione waited until everyone was asleep before she crept out of her bed and down the stairs, before she headed out of the common room.

.

.

.

It took her a while to even get outside of the castle, let alone find her way outside. She'd ended up going down stairs that ended up leading to another winding hallway, which meant that she had to backtrack to the stairs to find another way forward. In a way, it was just like a dungeon, with winding halls that'd take you to a dead end or a path to treasure. Unfortunately for her...

"What's that Ms. Norris, you say that someone's out there?"

More often than not she nearly ran into Filch, which made it really difficult to progress. She quickly hid in a shadowy corner of the hallway as Filch made his way downstairs. Hermione pressed herself further back against the wall she was leaning on and held her breath as Filch and his cat, Ms. Norris slowly began to move further down the hall. She sighed in relief before clasping her hand over her mouth as Filch suddenly stopped walking.

"...must have been the wind." Filch said before he and his cat rounded a corner, Hermione quickly climbed back up the stairs, and walked around a bit more before she came across a door that lead outside. Hermione gently pushed the door open as she slipped outside, and finally managed to make her way to the forest.

It looked foreboding, given the trees that seemed to practically reach up into the sky, and the pitch-black darkness of the night made the forest seem outright sinister. Luckily though, she wasn't going to spend too much time in the forest, she'd only be there for about an hour.

"Besides, I'm level 11, I'm sure I can handle a simple forest." Hermione said to herself as she walked into the forest. She didn't notice the shadowy figure that left Hogwarts and that followed her at a distance...


	6. Dungeon Crawling

"Well now I'm lost." Hermione plainly stated as she found herself in the same spot she had been in thirty minutes ago. "I didn't really think the forest would be this big..."

She'd been walking around the forest for more than an hour, and she could feel herself slowly begin to tire out. A part of her felt as though she should've taken Neville's warnings a bit more seriously, but she quickly squashed that part of her. Sure, she was lost, had no idea how to get back to Hogwarts, and was miserable and tired, but she couldn't just stop now. After all she was a mage, and an adventurer, if it was possible for the characters of the game to go hours without resting, then surely, she could do the same? She felt a rush of energy fill her as she saw a bright green light suddenly flash in the forest, which meant that someone/something was out there, if it was a monster she could probably kill it and gain experience points, if it was a person she'd be able to find her way back to Hogwarts in no time.

So, with a destination set in her mind, she began to walk towards the light, which had begun to shine even brighter for some reason. She idly brushed off a spider that fell from a tree branch onto her shoulder and set it on fire with a well-aimed Frizz. There were a lot of annoying spiders that seemed to practically infest the forest, and they seemed to enjoy falling on her hair or her shoulders and try to bite her. She usually swept them off her shoulders before they ever managed to do that though, and there was a trail of burnt spider ashes that lead all the way back to the spot she'd been in previously. She'd gotten some minuscule experience from the spiders, but she didn't get enough to level up at all. So, she was hoping that if the thing that was making the light was a monster, she'd be able to reach the next level relatively easily.

Eventually, she made her way into a large clearing where someone dressed in a cloak was standing over something that was lying on the ground. Hermione wanted to call out to the figure, but for some reason something stopped her from speaking. There was a sense of wrongness that washed over her entire body as she watched the figure bend down towards the ground and did...something. Hermione took a few steps forward to see what the figure was doing, and at that exact moment the moonlight filtered through the tree branches, giving her a perfect view as to what the man was doing. On the ground was what looked like a white horse, which had a long horn jutting out of its forehead, signifying that it was a unicorn. Beneath the unicorn, a pool of silver liquid surrounded the unicorn's body, ripples formed in the liquid as the figure bent down and began to drink from the blood.

Hermione paled and took a step back, as she realized exactly what the sense of wrongness she had felt before was. It looked like the figure had killed the unicorn and had decided to drink its blood for some strange reason. As she turned to leave she accidentally stepped on a dead branch, breaking the twig in two. The figure immediately heard the sound, and poked its head up, and their eyes met for a brief moment before Hermione decided to run as fast as she could from the figure. Heavy footsteps began to thunder after her, and she turned her head to see that the figure was chasing her. She quickly pulled out her staff and turned around to shoot a sheet of ice at the figure's feet, causing them to trip and fall.

She then felt a hand roughly yank her back by her cape, and she stumbled before falling backwards onto the ground. The figure hovered over her, breathing heavily as they pointed a wand at her forehead.

"You shouldn't have been here," the figure rasped, "You have no one but yourself to blame for this outcome that you find yourself in."

Hermione quickly cast a Frizz spell, which struck the figure in the face, which caused the figure to stumble as they cursed in anger. Hermione pushed herself up to her feet and dodged to the side as the figure blindly lunged at her and scrambled to her feet as she cast Bang to send him flying through the air until he crashed into a tree, and then fell down towards the ground.

'What are you doing you imbecile?!' She heard a voice hiss, 'She's just a young girl, how are you being so pathetic?!'

"I apologize master," The figure said as it pushed itself to its feet, "I'll end this now."

A breeze suddenly picked up, blowing the figure's hood off of their head, revealing their face. Hermione recognized the man, he was one of the-

"Avada Kedavra"

A green bolt of energy flew from the professor's wand and struck Hermione in the chest. She fell to the ground as though she were a rag doll as the spell connected, her heart stopped beating and her glazed over eyes stared blankly up at the night sky...

.  
"Well then I suppose that settles that." the professor said as he lightly tapped his foot against the girl's corpse.

'Why didn't you do that before?' his master hissed at him, 'It would have saved us so much time!"

"I know that, but I couldn't help but toy with her a little," the professor said, "So what should we do now?"

'Get rid of the evidence obviously,' his master said, 'There are certain creatures here that would love to eat human flesh...'

As he looked down at the corpse of the young girl he almost felt sorry about what he was going to do to her. But then in his line of work, it was either him or her that'd get killed, and he valued his life more than one of a girl who decided to sneak into a forest filled with deadly monsters. He slung the copse over his shoulder and began to carry her away...


	7. Omake 1

Hermione Granger blankly stared at the person who was in her way, and the person stared back at her in with a blank gaze as well. Hermione had decided to head to the library to find if she could get a good book to read during her first year at Hogwarts, and the person who was in her way had probably had the same idea. The two of them had found the book at the exact same time, and when they had reached out to grab the book they ended up in a silent stare down.

"..."

"..."

The two of them remained silent as a fierce battle of wills raged on, if one of them blinked the victor would claim the book for their own while mocking the loser. Which is why Hermione was determined on winning against this person, especially when it was her. The person she was fighting against flinched as someone bumped into her, and Hermione cheered as she grabbed the book.

"Well then Hermione," Hermione said to Hermione, "It looks like I win this round!"

"Shh!" Madam Prince hushed Hermione, who winced and rubbed the back of her head.

"Congratulations Hermione," Hermione said to Hermione, "This is your first win compared to my 24 wins in a row."

"When did you win 24 times in a row?" Hermione asked Hermione, "I clearly remember that you didn't win that many times!"

"You must have miscounted Hermione," Hermione said to Hermione, "I clearly remember winning approximately 24 times in a row."

"That's such-!"

"SHH!"

"Hermione you should really keep your temper in check," Hermione smirked as she chastised Hermione, "I don't think that Madam Prince likes you shouting like that."

Hermione scowled at Hermione, "Do you honestly have to be like that, it's really annoying Hermione."

Hermione shrugged, "I can't help it, I was created to act this way."

"Hey you two!" Hermione and Hermione turned around to see that Hermione had entered the room, "Who won?"

""I did!"" Hermione and Hermione said at the same time, only to whirl around and glare at each other.

.

.

.

"Hey Harry," Ron said as the two of them tried to study in the library, "Do you ever notice that Hermione just kind of...changes from time to time?"

"Yeah, I've noticed that too," Harry said as he looked at Hermione who was currently twirling her quill in her hand, "It's kind of odd really."

"Oh look, I managed to keep it going!" Hermione cheered as she managed to spin the quill on her finger.

"Uh, Hermione?" Ron asked, "You should really stop, we've got a test coming up soon and-"

"Don't worry Ron, I'm sure that we'll pass Snape's class without any effort!"

"How are you so sure about that?" Harry asked.

"Let's just say I have my ways..." Hermione grinned.

"You know when you grin like that, it makes me feel really scared." Ron said.

.

.

.

"So, these are the answer keys, right Professor Snape?" Hermione said to the tied-up Professor Snape, who glared at her as he struggled against his bindings.

"Mph!" Professor Snape tried to say through the bindings that were covering his mouth.

"I'm going to guess that's a yes?"

Hermione then turned to leave, but stopped and looked at Snape, and smirked before she burst into smoke, surprising the professor who was left bound in his office...

.

.

.

"Alright I've got it!" Hermione shouted as Madam Prince 'shushed' her again.

"Got what?" Ron asked.

"The answer sheet of course," Hermione said, "So here are the answers for tomorrow's test..."


	8. Mage missing in action

When Neville Longbottom woke up, he couldn't help but feel as though something was wrong today. He couldn't place his finger on the reason for why he felt that way, but if he had to guess it'd probably have to do with Hermione. The fact that she was so willing to leap headfirst into dangerous situations made him worried, though he took some relief in the fact that she had promised him that she wouldn't do anything too dangerous, like going up to the third-floor corridor or going into the Forbidden Forest. Hopefully she'd actually kept her promise, though a small part of him was thinking that she'd probably lied to his face and headed out anyway. Four days had passed, and Neville had thought less and less about Hermione, as he was confident she was probably spending her time with her other friends in the girl's dorm, or perhaps at the library.

When classes had started, he'd been pretty busy trying not to make a fool out of himself, but he still failed regardless, though the one class he was good at was Herbology. He'd also gotten a handful of detentions after he'd been late to Charms after he had gotten lost traveling up one of the many staircases, Filch had caught him on the third floor and had eagerly twisted the facts to make it appear as though Neville was intentionally trying to get to the third floor corridor(which he wasn't). During the past few days he didn't really notice the absence of Hermione, he'd always show up after the roll call, so he never noticed that she wasn't at class. It was on Friday when he finally noticed Hermione's absence after he had made it to class early for once. Professor McGonagall read down the list of students, with each student answering the professor with replies such as, 'Here!' and 'Present!'.

Professor McGonagall eventually reached Hermione's name, but the professor wasn't met with a reply at all. Professor Mcgonagall looked up from her role sheet and looked at the rows of seats in front of her,

"Has anyone seen ?" Professor McGonagall asked, "Is she sick, or is she just skipping class today?"

Many of the students, including Neville shook their heads, none of them had seen the 'mage' since after the day they had arrived at Hogwarts.

"Well, does anyone have any idea of where she could have gone?" Professor McGonagall asked, but was greeted by silence from the majority of the students in the room. "Does anyone know?"

It was at that point, that Neville knew for a fact that Hermione had lied to him, and she was probably in the forest doing the 'grinding' thing she had mentioned before. Neville felt a little hurt at being lied to like that, but he decided to tell the Professor where Hermione was probably at, which was either the forest or the third floor corridor.

"So then that's where she's hiding," Professor McGonagall said after Neville had told her about Hermione once class was over, "I don't know what she's thinking, but I do know that the headmaster won't exactly be pleased to find out that she ignored specific warnings."

Professor McGonagall had thanked him for the information after that and he left to go to his next class, which was Charms.

The next day, Neville could tell that there was some kind of...energy that was in the air that made everyone feel uncomfortable. Everyone tried to stick to their usual routines, as though nothing was wrong, and after breakfast Neville went to his final class of the week, Potions. When Neville slid into his seat, five minutes before class was supposed to start, the professor glided into the room, his cape billowing behind him. Once again like Professor McGonagall, he read off the roll call, and ignored the lack of response he had gotten once he had read Hermione's name, and then he paused at Harry's name.

"Ah, yes," Professor Snape said softly, "Harry Potter. Our new... _celebrity."_

The Professor went on, "... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper dea-"

Suddenly the door to the classroom opened and Professor McGonagll motioned for Snape to enter the hallway. The two of them began speaking in hushed tones before Professor Snape entered the room with a sour look on his face.

"Class is dismissed." Professor Snape said, and the students looked at him in confusion, "Are you all deaf? I said class is dismissed."

As they walked out of the classroom, Neville could overhear Ron excitedly talking to Harry,

"What do you think they're canceling classes for?" Harry asked Ron.

"I'm not too sure, but I heard a rumor from Fred and George during breakfast today," Ron said, "And they said that Dumbledore and the rest of the staff are getting rather nervous."

"What are they nervous for?" Harry asked Ron.

"Well according to the rumor, one of the first years wandered into the Forbidden Forest and got killed." Ron said.

"Really? Even after the warning Dumbledore gave out they still went into the forest?"

"I know right, how could you be as stupid enough to ignore the words of the greatest wizard in the world?!"

"Anyway, the rumor is that they're trying to cover it up," Ron continued, "They don't want to look too bad in front of the ministry."

"Really? Dumbledore doesn't look like the type to try and cover things up..." Harry said.

"I know, but that's why I said its just a rumor, I don't think I know anyone who would've actually gone into the forest."

Neville felt sick after he heard that, and he stumbled away from those two to go find a place to throw up. It took him a while, after all he had to figure his way around the staircases, which still gave him trouble from time to time, until he ended up on the first floor. As he rushed towards the bathroom, he saw Professor Snape briskly walk towards Professor Quirrell who had just gotten out of the bathroom.

"So, did you find her?" Professor Snape asked Professor Quirrell.

"D-do you m-mean if I f-found t-t-the-" Professor Quirrell stuttered before Professor Snape snorted and glared at the other Professor.

"Drop the act for once Quirrell," Professor Snape said, "I'm asking you a very simple question, did you find her or not?"

"I-I'm still looking..."

"Really? Because as far as I can tell this isn't the Forbidden Forest."

"I-I know that but-" Professor Quirrell began, but he was then cut off by Professor Snape once again.

"The Headmaster has specifically instructed to spend every moment of our free time looking for the girl," Professor Snape said, "But for some reason you're not putting in the effort-why is that?"

"Well you see-" Professor Quirrell and Professor Snape began to lower their voices, making it harder for Neville to hear. He decided to try and get a little closer, just to hear what they were-

"Mr. Longbottom, instead of crawling on the ground like a worm, perhaps you should consider the dangers of eavesdropping on your Professors." Professor Quirrell said, and Neville sheepishly came out of hiding.

"I'm sorry Professors I'm just worried about my friend," Neville said, "I just wanted to know what you knew, I know I shouldn't have eavesdropped on you like that."

"Well as long as you admit to your mistakes…" Professor Quirrell trailed off and looked at Professor Snape with an unreadable expression, "Perhaps Professor Snape can, ah, _enlighten_ you on a few details."

"I don't-"

"Come now Severus, the boy is worried for his friend, you could at least tell him something about what we've done so far." Professor Quirrell said as he laid a hand on Neville's shoulder, "Surely you have some spare time on your hands Professor, otherwise you'd be at the forest."

Professor Quirrell then turned around climbed back up the stairs, leaving Snape and Neville alone on the first floor.

"Um Professor-"

"Detention Longbottom." Professor Snape said as he pushed past Neville and climbed up the stairs...


	9. Cold

"Well then Longbottom, I would like to ask you why you neglected to let the staff know about your friend's disappearance until four days later?" Professor Snape said as Neville entered the room and sat across from him at his desk. "And you'd better come up with a good excuse."

"I-I honestly forgot about her Professor..." Neville said as he looked down at the ground, "Yes we were friends, sort of, but we weren't really that close."

"What do you mean 'sort of'?" Professor Snape asked, "Were you her friend or were you just acquaintances?"

"Well I guess I'd say we were more like acquaintances then we were friends." Neville explained, "But that doesn't mean I don't care about her, I just..."

"You feel guilty."

"...Yes."

"I won't pretend that you're innocent in this whole affair, Mr. Longbottom," Professor Snape said, "Once we find the girl the two of you will have some explaining to do to the Headmaster."

"Will we get expelled?" Neville asked.

"You won't, particularly due to your grandmother's influence," Professor Snape said, "But as to your friend, she'd mostly likely get expelled and have to go to a different school."

"Oh," Neville said, and the two of them soon fell silent. "So are you all any close to finding her?"

"No, we aren't close at all." Professor Snape said, "There was a trail of burnt spiders that lead to a clearing, so we have somewhat of an idea of where she has been."

"But you have no idea as to where she is now?"

"Mr. Longbottom, the Forbidden Forest stretches on for miles, she could be anywhere."

Professor Snape sighed and rubbed his temples, "And with certain complications that have been brought up, our search has been more of a hindrance than we thought it would be."

"What are the 'certain complications?'" Professor Snape frowned at Neville as soon as the words left his mouth.

"I'm not going to give away too much information to an eleven year old, I've given you the details, so it's time for your detention." Professor Snape said.

"But you haven't really given me too much information," Neville protested, "You've only told me about the bare minimum of-"

"And that's all you need to know, you aren't a Professor at Hogwarts, therefore you won't get every bit of information," Professor Snape interrupted Neville "So get to cleaning the cauldrons, I want them clean before my next class on Monday."

"But I-"

"Do you want two weeks of detention, because I can think of more things I can have you do, get to work _now._ "

Neville sighed as he left the office and began to clean the cauldrons in the classroom. Hopefully, tomorrow would bring better news than what he had gotten today, at least that's what he hoped...

.

.

.

Well it turned out that today was no better than yesterday. Even though he had classes off for today, his mind couldn't help but circle back to Hermione from time to time over the course of the day. The rumors that Harry and Ron had talked about the other day started to increase in full force, some people were saying that there was some crazed killer out in the forest that snatched young girl's souls up and drank unicorn blood. Which was absolutely ridiculous, since everyone knew that killing a unicorn and drinking its blood was bound to send you on a one way trip to Azkaban and a curse to boot. The fact that he knew the truth when everyone else didn't irritated him a little, since they had no idea what they were even talking about, given that someone's life was on the line.

He'd seen groups of professors filter in and out of the forest through his window, and each time a group came back his heart sank a little when he saw that Hermione wasn't with them. Neville was so absorbed in staring out the window, that he didn't notice someone call his name until they shook his shoulder.

"Hey Neville," Ron said as he shook Neville's shoulder, "You've been staring out that window for about an hour, are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine Ron." Neville answered as he turned to look out the window, "I'm just watching to see what the professors are doing."

"Yeah I could see that, you were so focused on watching them, for a second there I thought you forgot to breathe!"

"Anyway, I was wondering if the reason you're looking out that window is because of that girl," Ron said, "What was her name again?"

"Hermione."

"Right her, I'm guessing she's the one they're looking for?"

"Yeah, but they haven't gotten any luck in trying to find her." Neville said.

"Well I heard from my brothers that the forest pretty much stretches on for miles," Ron said, "So i could see how the professors are having trouble trying to find-"

Ron stopped himself mid sentence and frowned, "Well that's odd, why are they all running into the forest?"

Neville turned to look, and sure enough, all of the Professors who had just left the forest immediately turned around and ran back into the forest. Even though they were about a few feet above the ground, Neville could still hear them yelling frantically about something.

"Do you think we should take a look?" Neville heard someone ask, and he turned around to see that Harry had been watching the scene as well.

"Well...yes." Neville said, "But we should probably be-"

And then that's when he saw something being carried in Professor Quirrell's arms as he darted out of the forest. And at first he couldn't believe what he was seeing...

"Hey isn't that-"

Neville ignored Ron and raced down the stairs two steps at a time, ignoring the odd looks he got from the people he passed by on his way down. He eventually made it to a door that lead outside, and as he ran to the place where the Professors were grouped together, he could eventually make out the object that Professor Quirrell was holding in his hands. Only there was the fact that the 'thing' he was holding in his arms wasn't actually a 'thing', it was a person. But even some people would argue on calling it a 'person', it would be more accurate to describe it for what it really was.

"I-It l-looks l-like we w-w-were too l-late." Neville heard Professor Quirrell solemnly say, "I-it s-seems th-that t-the g-girl wa-was killed by an a-acromantula."

Professor Quirrell moved to the side, which gave Neville the full view of the broken body of Hermione Granger...


	10. Denial

It was as if the world had stopped moving forward once he saw the body of Hermione Granger. His breath caught in his chest as he rapidly tried to deny what he saw in front of him, after all this couldn't be real…right? There was no way that someone as vibrant and full of energy as Hermione Granger would just up and die to a acromantula, she'd most likely be able to take it on with no trouble like she did with Pettigrew! Even though he tried to deny what he saw in front of him, the truth hit him like a sack of bricks.

Hermione Granger was dead, and it was all his fault…

.

.

.

The days passed by him in a blur as classes resumed as though nothing had happened. To be honest, he still felt as though he was still in shock, and as a result his grades in all of his classes began to slip. Some of his professors were understanding about this and had given a firm warning to at least study up for his classes in order to make it to the second year, others weren't so understanding of his situation.

"Mr. Longbottom, are you planning on flunking out of Hogwarts on your first year?" Professor Snape had said one day when he had called him to his office, "I understand that the death of someone you knew is hard, but it has been two months since then, I expect you to stop moping."

"…Yes professor." Neville said as he clenched his fist.

"Feeling guilty about the death of someone who brazenly got herself killed won't help anyone," Professor Snape continued, "At most you'll just be a hindrance to everyone else, so get your act together."

"…" Neville simply nodded and left the office, anger boiled up inside of him as he replayed Professor Snape's words over and over again. How did he expect him just to get over it, it was impossible for him to do! Every night, whenever Neville went to bed, he kept dreaming up ways Hermione had met her end in the Forbidden Forest. Was she terrified when she was caught by the acromantula? Or did she plan to go out in a blaze of glory, fighting as long as she could in order to stay alive? He didn't know the answer to his own questions, and so he started to avoid sleeping, and stared at the ceiling of the dorm room until morning came.

Harry and Ron had tried to cheer him up, and in their words they wanted to get him away from turning into,

"A gloomy version of a Ravenclaw."

And it was nice that they wanted to at least try to help him out, but honestly it didn't really help him at all. The only time he felt somewhat normal was when he was working with plants during Herbology. One day though, he learned something rather interesting.

"Today class," Professor Sprout had said, "We're going to talk about the Horse of Odin, does anyone know what I'm talking about?"

Silence reigned throughout the students, as it seemed that no one had any idea as to what Professor Sprout was talking about. Then someone hesitantly rose their hand into the air.

"Yes, Mr. Potter?" Professor Sprout asked.

"You're talking about Yggdrasil, right?" Harry said, "The tree based in Norse mythology that protects the nine worlds?"

"Very good Mr. Potter!" Professor Sprout clapped her hands, and Harry rubbed the back of his neck, "You seem rather knowledgeable about Yggdrasil, did you read it in a book?"

"No, my uncle and my cousin are really into Norse mythology," Harry explained, "My cousin really likes seeing it in the games he plays, and my uncle just likes to talk about history."

"That seems rather wonderful!" Professor Sprout said before she continued, "Yes, is correct, Yggdrasil was seen as a holy ash tree, which protects the nine worlds."

"It was also a meeting place for the gods, in order to meet to discuss the things that had come up during their rule." Professor Sprout said.

Another student rose their hand, and Professor Sprout called on them.

"Aren't the leaves used to bring people back to life?" the student said. "I think in the game I played, you could bring people back to life by using the leaf?"

"Well…Yggdrasil is imbued with the power of the gods," Professor Sprout said, "So I believe it may be possible to bring someone back to life using the power of an Yggdrasil leaf."

"Oh that's cool, it's too bad that Yggdrasil doesn't really exist though."

"Well I wouldn't say it doesn't exist," Professor Sprout said, "I'd say that we just haven't been looking hard enough, it could be in the place we expect the least…"

.

.

.

"Hey Harry," The next day, Ron was talking to Harry about another rumor he had heard, "You know this is just a rumor, but I heard that Yggdrasil's in the Forbidden Forest."

"I doubt that Ron," Harry said, "If it was in the Forbidden Forest, wouldn't they have found it by now?"

"Well they haven't searched everywhere," Ron said, "Maybe it's like Professor Sprout said and it's in the place we expect the least."

"I don't think it works that way Ron," Harry said.

"Well if you think about it, doesn't it make sense?"

"What makes sense?"

"It explains why that girl went into the forest, she must've been looking for Yggdrasil!"

"Ron be quiet!" Harry hissed as he looked over at Neville who was picking at his food. "What if Neville heard that, he might do something rash!"

"Harry I'm pretty sure Neville knows better than to go run into the Forbi-"

"Troll!" Professor Quirrell shouted as he ran into the Great Hall, "There's a troll in the dungeons!"

After that, utter panic broke out as people began to run for safety, and amidst all the confusion, Harry didn't notice Neville slip through the door that lead outside…

.

.

.

Neville took a deep breath as he looked at the entrance to the Forbidden Forest. It was a long shot, but if that rumor was true…if Yggdrasil was really in the forest somewhere…he was willing to take the risk. He'd be fine…hopefully, he thought to himself as he began his quest to find the Yggdrasil leaf…


	11. Why dit it have to be spiders!

The Forbidden Forest was like a maze; it was easy to get yourself lost if you didn't know what you were doing. Looking at it from a distance didn't really give the place any justice, once you walked inside you'd get the full scope of how big the entire forest was. Tall trees reached almost all the way up to the sky, and given how densely packed together they were, it made it difficult to see where you were going half of the time. Neville wasn't exactly sure how the Professors had managed not to get lost, but he hoped that he could figure his way back out before people noticed he was missing.

If that happened, Harry would most likely inform the Professors, and they'd quickly drag Neville back to school, perhaps they'd even expel him. But right now he didn't care about that, what he wanted to do is see if he could find Yggdrasil. He knew he shouldn't take rumors such as the ones Ron had mentioned seriously, but given how he'd come across things that made no logical sense he was willing to try and see what he could find. On the bright side, it was still sunny outside, which made it easy for him to see where he was going.

He had marked the path he was traveling on with dead branches and acorns he had found on the ground. He didn't have anything he could cut with to make markings on trees, so for now he was restricted to using whatever he could so he wouldn't get lost. Hopefully, nothing would happen to his only source of information of where he was. Suddenly, he felt something land on his shoulder, and he turned to see that a baby acromantula had landed on his shoulder. He quickly brushed it off his shoulder and stepped on it, before he shivered in disgust.

 _Why did there have to be so many spiders here?_ Neville thought to himself as he continued to walk forward, not noticing the eyes that were following his every movement from the bushes…

.  
"Ugh." Neville sighed as he took a rest under the shade of one of the many trees in the forest. He'd been walking aimlessly for about a day now, and he still hadn't made any significant progress at all. A small voice in the corner of his mind berated himself for even coming here in the first place. He had instantly jumped headfirst into this, and had only brought a flask of water to keep himself going. He hadn't brought a sheet of paper he could've used to map where he had and hadn't been in the forest, and he hadn't prepared enough for spending more than a day in the forest. If he had to guess, by now the Professors had probably noticed his sudden disappearance, and were undoubtedly tracking him down at this very moment in time.

 _Maybe I should give up on the whole Yggdrasil leaf thing,_ Neville thought to himself, as it suddenly began to rain. Thick and slimy droplets of rain dripped down from the sky and mercilessly pelted him with water.

…Wait a second. Neville noticed that the rain wasn't falling anywhere else in the forest, it was though it was localized entirely where Neville was sitting.

 _Creak…_

Neville heard the sounds of branches cracking, and large shadow suddenly loomed over him. He hesitantly looked up to see a giant acromantula glaring down at him from the tree.

"Well, well…It looks like I've found the perpetrator who's been killing all of the children _."_ The acromantula said, "You humans really have no sense of morality, do you?"

"I-I…" Neville found that he couldn't even force the words out of his mouth, he quickly got to his feet and moved away from the tree. The acromantula leapt down from the tree and landed on the ground, kicking up dirt and dust before it moved even closer to him.

"You should've left the forest yesterday," the acromantula said as its pincers dripped with drool, "You might've actually had a chance of survival if you'd left."

"Y-you can talk?" Neville found himself saying.

"Yes, I picked it up from an old 'friend'," The acromantula said, "He's been coming and going for a while now, the last time I saw him was about a few months ago."

"Oh, it's nice for you to have friends…" Neville said as he took a step back, "In fact I have a lot of friends who'd miss me if I died here, so…"

"So what?" the acromantula said, "I'm not going to let you live, he even told me not to let any 'nosy first years' get away."

"Um, who is this 'he' you keep mentioning?" Neville asked.

"I'm not too sure why you want to know, considering you're going to die."

The acromantula reared back and charged at Neville, who screamed in fright and started to run as fast as he could.

"You can't outrun me!" The acromantula shouted, "You're better off giving up now and dying!"

Neville turned to look behind him to see that the acromantula had gotten close to his leg, its pincers were primed to jab at Neville, so he quickly leapt to the side, avoiding getting stabbed by the acromantula. The acromantula ran head first into a rock, and swayed for a brief moment before shaking its head.

"You little shit…" The acromantula cursed, "For that, I'm going to make sure your death is extra painful!"

Neville turned to run, but tripped into a large pit that had been covered in leaves. He tried to push himself to feet, but he found that he couldn't move at all.

"You know this is hilarious, I thought you humans were smarter than this." The acromantula said as it peered at Neville from the top of the hole. "Falling for a human made trap? How stupid could you be?"

"Oh well," The acromantula said as it rose one of its legs, "I suppose this is a good time as ever to do this, I'll only have one chance after all."

The acromantula stabbed its leg down into the pit, missing Neville by about an inch.

"Y-you missed!" Neville shouted as his heart pounded in his chest.

"Who said I was aiming at you?" The acromantula said.

Neville was confused for a few moments, until he heard the sound of a rope snapping, and his eyes widened.

"Well I suppose I should say something to commemorate this moment." The acromantula said as it watched the boy plummet down the hole a human had dug, and heard the sound of a dull thud as the boy hit the ground below. "But I can't think of anything appropriate to say, I''m not sure on what to do."

The acromantula then turned and walked away…


	12. The hero

"Harry why did we have to come in here?" Ron asked as he and Harry soon found themselves lost in the Forbidden Forest. "I mean I know we can't leave Neville here, but shouldn't we have gotten a teacher?"

"Because it's our fault he even ran in here in the first place," Harry said as he pushed aside a tree branch that was blocking his way forward, "As soon as we find him we'll head back to school, the troll's probably still making a mess so it'll be easy to slip back in."

"I know it's technically our fault," Ron said, "But we don't have any idea where he could have gone."

"Well yeah, but he couldn't have gotten far," Harry said, "It's only been a few minutes since he went missing, so it'll be pretty easy to find him."

"Right-agh!"

"What?!" Harry whirled around to see that Ron was combing his hands through his hair, "What happened?!"

"A s-spider fell on me!" Ron shouted as he swept the tiny spider out of his hair and onto the ground. He quickly stomped on it before it could get away, and then shivered in disgust.

"…Really Ron?" Harry asked as he looked at his friend, "A little spider like that actually freaked you out?"

"Hey if you got tortured by them like I have, you'd freak out too!" Ron tried to defend himself.

"Alright then, we should get back on track now," Harry said as he reached into his bag and pulled out a compass.

"Where'd you get that?" Ron asked as he looked at the compass.

"Oh my uncle gave it to me after they 'accidentally' lost me in the woods," Harry said, "It was a birthday gift, anyway let's head north for a bit and see if Neville's gone that way."

"Right let's-" Ron then tripped and fell onto the ground. "Really, who put that there?!"

Ron glared at the red and gold treasure box that laid innocently on the road, begging to be opened.

"Oh a treasure box," Harry said as he propped the lid open, and reached into the box to pull out a thin sword. "A copper sword? I was hoping for something better than that to be honest."

Harry put the sword into his bag, and Ron looked at him in confusion.

"How did you fit that big sword into that little bag?" Ron asked.

"Magic." Harry said.

"Really, did you buy an enchanted bag or something?" Ron asked.

"Oh no, I won it in a competition," Harry said as he looked back down at his compass, "Anyway let's keep moving, if we stand still any longer we won't reach Neville in time."

"Alright then, lead on Harry!" Ron shouted.

.

.

.

"Ugh, Harry can we take a break?" Ron asked. "We've been walking for so long, and the breaks we've taken haven't been long."

"C'mon Ron, where's your youthful spirit?" Harry asked, "We've only been here for a day, are you sure you're tired?"

"Well, given that you've got me carrying all of that junk you found in those chests, yes I'm tired!"

"Alright, we'll take a short break, then we'll get going again." Harry said.

Ron sighed in relief and sat on top of a rock near a tree. Harry blinked in surprise as he saw what Ron was sitting on.

"Uh, Ron I think you need to get up." Harry whispered to Ron.

"What, you just said that we could take a break!" Ron shouted.

"I know I said that, but I seriously think you should get up!" Harry hissed at Ron.

"In a few minutes, just let me lie down for-"

As Ron laid back on the rock, he realized that it was rather fuzzy for a 'rock'. In fact, it felt rather warm too, and if he strained himself he could hear the sounds of what was possibly a heartbeat. Ron grew pale as he turned to see that the 'rock' he was sitting on had large eyes that were currently closed. It also had legs, eight very hairy and long legs, that were currently burrowed underneath its body.

"Ron don't panic!" Harry frantically tried to get his friend to calm down, as Ron was beginning to hyperventilate. "Just take deep breaths and-"

Suddenly, the acromantula stood up and blurrily looked around before spotting Harry standing in front of it.

"Really, another one?" the acromantula said in disgust, "After I already killed the last boy who made his way here?"

"What did you just say?" Harry asked as he clenched his fist.

"Oi, are you deaf boy?" The acromantula said, "I just told you I killed the last boy who was here, didn't I?!"

"Oh, you did now?" Harry said as he pulled out the copper sword from his bag, "I wasn't planning on using this, but you know what? I think I will."

Harry then dashed towards the spider and swung his sword, slicing off one of its legs. The spider recoiled in pain, causing Ron to roll off its body.

"I'll kill you for that you brat!" The acromantula shouted as it jabbed one of its legs at Harry, who effortlessly dodged to the side. "Stay still!"

"It's not my fault you're too slow!" Harry shouted before the acromantula swung one of its legs and hit him in the stomach, sending him skidding back on the ground.

"You weren't fast enough to dodge that, now were you?!"

The acromantula let loose a rapid flurry of jabs, each of them struck Harry as he tried to block or deflect the blows. The acromantula then lunged at Harry, its fangs bared as Harry held his sword out in front of him, and swung it with enough force to send it crashing down on to the ground, nearly missing Ron who dodged to the side at the last minute. Harry then jumped into the air and plunged his sword into the acromantula's body.

"Gehgh…" The acromantula gurgled as it choked on its blood, "Th-this can't be happening to me… old friend please help me, I don't want to-"

The acromantula faded into purple smoke that rose into to the air…

"Di-did you just?" Ron stared at Harry, his mouth hung open as his friend idly cleaned the guts of the acromantula off of his sword.

"Hm? Oh that, that wasn't really hard to deal with," Harry said, "He was only level 11, and I'm at 12, so it wasn't that much of a challenge."

"What are you-" Ron began to say, but stopped as he noticed that Harry was practically talking to himself.

"I was really lucky with that critical hit, I should probably see if I can find another seed of strength and then…"

"Hello, is anyone up there?!" The two of them then heard Neville's voice, and they looked around but couldn't see him anywhere. "I'm stuck down this pit, do you think you could help me?!"

It took them a short while, but eventually they stumbled across the hole, and peered down to see that Neville was nursing a broken arm, but other than that he seemed to be perfectly fine.

"Well then, it looks like we've just finished the quest Ron," Harry said, "We should hurry up and get him back to Hogwarts so we can get the experience points."

"What? You've been acting really weird today Harry," Ron said, "What do you mean by experience points?"

"I'll explain that later," Harry said as he pulled out rope from his bag, "For now let's grab Neville and get out of here." 


	13. Saving

"Of all the idiotic, reckless, irresponsible-!"

"Now, now Minerva," Dumbledore said as he tried to get her to calm down, "I'm sure Mr. Potter and Mr. Weasley were just looking out for their friend."

"Which is why they should have informed the staff instead of racing out into the forest!"

Harry and Ron were sitting in Dumbledore's office, they had been brought there after they had managed to make their way to the entrance of the Forbidden Forest. Neville had been taken to the infirmary, due to his broken arm, though Harry was sure that he'd promptly be dragged here to get grilled by Professor Mcgonagall.

"It's obvious why they didn't get help," Professor Snape said, "They obviously wanted attention, why else would they suddenly go in to 'rescue' Longbottom."

"That isn't true," Harry said, "We just felt bad for causing Neville to go to the forest, so we decided to go in after him."

"Oh, you felt bad? I suppose then everything's forgiven," Professor Snape said, " We'll just have to let you off with a slap of a wrist then, right Headmaster?"

"You aren't helping matters either Severus." Dumbledore said before he sighed.

"While your intentions were noble Mr. Potter, that doesn't negate the fact that you consciously broke the rules and put yourself in danger," Dumbledore said.

"But Headmaster I-"

"I am aware of your...condition," Dumbeldore continued, "But that does not mean you are invincible, just look at what happened with Ms. Granger all of those months ago."

Harry sighed and looked down at the ground, of course he knew what he was doing was dangerous, and that there was a chance at dying like Hermione. But there was one thing he had kept from the headmaster that had given him even more of a drive to go to the forest. Neville didn't have the same ability he had, which put him at greater risking of getting seriously injured or killed. He honestly wasn't sure of what Neville's ability even was, but he'd been able to figure out Hermione's when they had met on the train.

He'd had a few suspicions as to why she hadn't used it until this very moment, but it probably had to do with-

"Mr. Potter are you daydreaming?" Professor Snape asked, "Should we make your punishment more severe than the one that the Headmaster provided?"

Harry quickly snapped himself out of his thoughts and looked at Dumbledore.

"Um, what did you say?" Harry asked. "I was thinking about something, I'm sorry."

"We've decided that you, Mr. Weasley, and Mr. Longbottom will be having detention for the next few months with Professor Snape," Dumbledore said, "We'll also take off six-hundred points from Gryffindor, and we will be taking you off the team, I think this is a suitable punishment."

Harry winced at the amount of points that had been taken away, along with the privilege to play on the team, he was sure that the rest of Gryffindor wouldn't exactly be pleased with the news. But on the other hand, it was either facing expulsion or losing points, and he'd rather lose points than get expelled and have to go back to his 'normal' life with the Dursley's. Anything was more preferable than having to deal with them longer than he had to.

After getting lectured for another hour, the two of them were finally allowed to return to their dorms, and the two of them climbed onto their respective beds before falling asleep...

.

.

.

Sleeping in a coffin wasn't as bad as she thought it would have been, in fact it was rather comfortable. It seemed as if her parents had gone all out on expenses and had gotten her a pretty good coffin, as morbid as that sounded. On the other hand, there was the problem of trying to get out of coffin while she was laying down on her back. It was hard for her to find a good way to push the lid open, as it felt as though there was a force that was keeping the coffin closed. There was the very real possibility that she had just been buried, which was an inconvenience seeing as she would most likely get her clothes muddied up. And there was the other problem of having to actually breathe to live, and she found that she was quickly running out of air.

So, she decided to skip formalities and blew the lid off of the coffin. She thought she heard some people heard some people scream in fright, though she didn't really care about that right now. She carefully pulled herself out of the coffin and got to her feet. She stumbled but used the priest who was standing next to the coffin as support. Said priest was looking at her with wide, panicked eyes as she pushed herself away from him and looked out at the crowd of gathered people who were watching her with wide eyes.

She scanned through the crowd to see that her mother and father were sitting in the front row of the church they had used to visit. She waved to them, but for some reason that had frightened them to the point where she could see a small stain forming on her father's dress pants.

"Hey what's with everyone?" She asked as she looked out at the crowd, "You're acting like you've never seen someone crawl out of a coffin before!"

She then turned to the priest who shrunk back in fear as she took a step towards him,

"Mr. Priest I was wondering if you could call this whole funeral thing off," She said as she placed a hand on his shoulder, "I wouldn't want my parents to have to pay too much for my own funeral."

"D-D-D..." The priest couldn't help but stutter as he tried to come up with a coherent answer. She tilted her head,

"What's wrong, you look like you've seen a ghost?"

"The Demon walks among us!" The priest shouted before he pulled a vial of liquid out from his pocket and splashed it on her. For a few seconds she had expected something to happen, but the only thing that changed was that she was annoyed and wet.

"Hey now, that wasn't very nice." She said as the Priest suddenly jerked violently before falling to the floor.

"Oh, I think I put a little too much into that Zap spell, and now he's dead," She said to herself, "Well that's a real shame...I guess."

She turned back to see that people had begun to flee from church as they pushed and shoved each other in order to get away from something.

"Hey you guys should calm down!" She shouted.

A man suddenly became encased in ice and before falling to the ground, shattering into tiny little pieces.

"Oh no, I did it again..." She said to herself as the people began to scream out in terror. She sighed, she'd have to wait until they'd all calmed down so she could explain things to them, she didn't want to make any of their tempers flare too much.

"Whoops." She said as a jet of fire engulfed an elderly man, "I've really got to work on that..."


	14. Deleting

Harry wasn't sure when the first cracks had appeared. It could've been days, or months ago, but the fact was that they were here to stay. The cracks themselves were rather ominous, they looked as though someone had torn through a set to get backstage, leaving the darkness exposed to audience watching the show from their seats. There was an overall sense of wrongness that emanated from the cracks, but that didn't stop some people from pushing their luck by getting close to the cracks. At first, the cracks had started out rather small and contained, but then they suddenly started to get larger, until they were about the size of someone's head.

The professors had been worried about it and had tried an assortment of spells to keep the cracks in check, but no matter what they cast the cracks would always come back. It was during Potions when things had suddenly turned for the worst.

"Mr. Potter," Professor Snape had said, "I'm sure you enjoy your time resting in your classes, but I assure you that I won't let it slide."

"100 points from Gryffindor for sleeping in class."

Some of the Slytherins chuckled at this, and Professor Snape walked over to Draco who had completely focused on brewing his potion.

"Why can't you be a diligent student like Mr. Malfoy?" Professor Snape had asked as he turned to look at Harry, "The only way you'd catch up to him is if he suddenly disappeared into thin air."

And then a large crack, the size of a large pit appeared under Draco's desk, sucking the Professor and Draco into the crack. The class had gone silent as they stared at the spots that Snape and Draco had been, before the classroom erupted into complete and utter chaos as they dashed out of the room. It was after that day, that the cracks seemed to appear more often and at random places which caused quite a few unlucky students and staff to simply fall down the cracks.

It was at this point in time, when Harry realized that he couldn't make out anyone's face. It was though someone had taken an eraser and wiped off all of the defining features of a person, leaving their face as though they were a blank canvas. While it had freaked him out at first, he had gotten used to it, and there was the added benefit of making each disappearance impact him less than it did when he could see their faces. It made him feel a bit less guilty for let things come this far, which made it easier for him to sleep at night.

The day after Snape and Draco vanished, !xI#$ had summoned him to his office.

"Harry," !xI#$ had said, "Do you have any idea of what may be happening?"

Harry sighed, "It's quite simple really," He said, "Reality is falling apart, there's nothing you can do."

"Why is reality falling apart?" !xI#$ asked.

"There are multiple reasons as to why," Harry said, "but you won't be around long enough for me to explain it to you."

"What do-"

"I'm sorry but I have to go, I'll just have to fix it during the next go-around."

"Harry you need to-"

Harry quickly exited the room and walked back to the dorms, which had begun to become rather empty. The students had become despondent as they realized the fact that tomorrow might be their last day of existence. #$%^& was taking in rather hard as well, having lost all three of his brothers on the same day. He blankly stared ahead at the wall as he sat on his bed, he rarely got up from his bed to do anything as he had apparently accepted his fate.

"Hey, #$%^& are you alright?" Harry asked, "You've been sitting there for a while now."

#$%^& didn't answer him, he just turned his head to look at Harry before turning around to stare at the wall again. Harry sighed as he realized that there must have been a bug in the code, and he went to his own bed, avoiding the cracks that had formed on the ground before he went to bed...

Morning soon came, and Harry practically dragged #$%^& down the stairs to eat breakfast, despite #$%^&'s protests. The only ones who were down in the great hall were a few students, !xI#$, and the turban wearing %()&^ . %()&^ was the only one who seemed to be pleased with how events were going, as he made constant trips to the third-floor corridor with no interruptions. After all, there weren't that many people left at *&)^%$# anymore, so any obstacle that would have been in his way was dealt with.

Then the front doors creaked open, and a pale girl with black wings suddenly made her way into the school. Harry tried to remember her name, but could only come up with one letter; H. He was sure that wasn't her name, but for now that was what he was going to call her. When %()&^ saw H, he panicked and immediately leapt out of his seat to run. The girl looked rather bored as she rose her hand up and a burst of fire shot out of her hand and at %()&^ 's turban. %()&^ immediately threw the hat on the floor, exposing a second blurred face on the back of his head, that made Harry's head throb.

H took another step forward, and %()&^ pulled out his wand and shot a jet of green energy at the girl, who stumbled back from the force of the spell, but she quickly shrugged it off and continued to walk towards %()&^. %()&^ began to fire a stream of curses at H, who didn't flinch at a single spell %()&^ threw her way. Eventually she reached %()&^, and grabbed him by the face before setting him ablaze. %()&^ rolled around on the floor, trying to extinguish the flames, and H suddenly turned to look at Harry.

"I win〜"

And then Harry's world came to an end...

GaMe OVeR

.

.

.

Harry jerked awake and found himself back on the Hogwarts Express. Ron was looking at him in worry,

"Are you alright there Harry?" Ron asked, "You just conked out, and I couldn't get you to wake up."

Harry opened his mouth to say something when the door to the compartment swung open and a girl dressed in odd clothing stepped into the room, dragging an awkward looking boy with sandy hair behind her.

"Hello there, my name is Hermione Granger, and this is Neville Longbottom," The girl who had introduced herself and her friend said, "We're on a very important quest, have either of you seen a toad?"


	15. Ready player one?

_A poem by Hermione Granger

The Crack

Cold, dark, and miserable

The crack in the wall is barely visible

Their tendrils stretch on for miles,

And with a great big smile,

A chuckle begins to rise

_

 _As they ask the question, "Are you enjoying your prize?_ "

.

.

.

Harry Potter sat still as he watched the events that had taken place before the reset play themselves out in a similar fashion. Hemione would introduce herself, Ron would sarcastically comment about her attitude, Hermione would turn Scabbers back into Pettigrew, and Pettigrew would be effortlessly taken down by Hermione. And then right about now, Ron's brother would show up.

"Oh, hey Percy!" Ron yelled, "Did you know that Scabbers was actually a fat man in disguise?"

Percy's eye twitched as he looked on the man who was dressed in rags on the ground, and then back to Ron.

"Yeah, I had that same look on my face too," Ron said, "Especially when I realized he's probably slept with most of us."

...Watching the scene unfold in front of him had been funny the first time, but since this was his third time around, it had quickly gotten annoying. While everyone was busy trying to talk over themselves when the train stopped in its tracks, Harry quickly grabbed the wand Wormtail had in his pocket (why he hadn't used it all during the fight and instead chose Ron's wand, he'd never know) and pretended to act in a normal fashion as the Aurors arrived.

"So, you're telling me that she took on a Death Eater by herself, and managed to win?" Kingsley Shacklebolt asked Harry, "How do you expect me to believe that?"

"It's the truth," Harry said as he shrugged his shoulders, "If you don't believe me, ask my friend or Neville, they saw the whole thing."

"While I don't want to doubt you, perhaps you were confused?" Shacklebolt said, "I have trouble believing that a eleven year old girl could stop someone as skilled as Peter Pettigrew."

"Well if you still don't believe me, how about you get a pensive of my memory?" Harry asked, "Or use that veritaserum stuff you have in your pocket."

Harry smirked as Shacklebolt stuttered in confusion, before clearing his throat, "No we won't use veritaserum on children, that isn't how we work." Shacklebolt said before he sighed, "I don't even know how you knew I had it."

"I've got a great sense of smell Mr. Auror," Harry said, "So are you going to let me go?"

Shacklebolt nodded, and Harry was escorted out into the hallway as the same time as Ron and Neville.

"Bloody Hell, my heart was beating out of my chest!" Ron shouted, "I didn't think it'd be that intense!"

"It's an interrogation Ron," Harry said, "Of course they're going to be intense."

"Well yeah but-"

"Anyway," Harry interrupted Ron, "We're not going to tell Hermione whatever we said to those officers, got it?"

Neville frowned, "Why not, all we said was-"

"The truth yes, but I suppose we might have put our own little spin on it," Harry said, "So let's agree not to mention it until the time is right okay?"

"I-"

"Glad to see that you agree Neville!"

.

.

.

After the interrogation was over, the Auror's left the train and the students were brought to Hogwarts. Harry could see that Ron kept sneaking glances at Hermione, as he tried and failed to look natural. As they were brought into the Great Hall, they were greeted by Dumbledore before the sorting took place. It progressed as usual, with certain people ending up in the exact same house they had been before, and the Hermione was called up. It took a few minutes, but the Hat eventually called out,

"Gryffindor!"

And Hermione practically skipped to the table. Then it was Harry's turn as he was called up to be sorted, as soon as the hat began to speak he began to chant 'Gryffindor' over and over again in his mind.

'Are you sure you want to-'

"Yes." Harry cut the hat off mid sentence.

'But you would do so much-'

"I don't care put me in Gryffindor."

'Hmph. The youth of today are so rude.'

"Gryffindor!" The hat shouted, and Harry handed the hat to McGonagall and sat at the Gryffindor table. He'd been congratulated by the twins and everyone else at the Gryffindor table, but he could care less about the praise, he'd already heard it before. Right now, he would have to be focused on the one person that could easily make or break his run, Hermione Granger. Off to the side of the table she was excitedly talking to Neville about the third-floor corridor and the Forbidden Forest, despite the fact that Neville was frantically trying to get her back down to earth.

In a few hours Hermione Granger would be killed in the Forbidden Forest by Professor Quirrell, and it would take a few weeks for him to 'find' the body. After that her corpse would be sent home with a heartfelt apology letter from Dumbledore, and her parents would arrange a funeral for their 'dead' girl who would come back as a demon and kill off a majority of her extended family before she would come back to Hogwarts and set Quirrell on fire. At least, this is what happened the second time around, which is why he wasn't prepared enough.

The first time, she had gone up to the third-floor corridor and had gotten mauled by the Cerberus who guarded the Philosopher's Stone. After that, Neville would go up looking for her, only to have an unfortunate run in with Quirrell and a flight of stairs, when Hermione revived she would fly into a psychotic rage and snap Quirrell's neck before reality fell apart. There was a 50-50 chance she'd either go either of the places, which meant that he had to follow her if he wanted to make sure she would survive the night.

.

.

.

It had taken a good hour of waiting after the feast had ended and they had been led up to their dorms by the perfects. Harry was crouched in the furthest corner in the common room as he waited for Hermione to head down from her dorm. Sure, enough she eventually did, and Harry quickly cast a stun spell at her, sending her crashing to the ground. It wasn't the best method he could have come up with, but he was on a tight schedule, he walked up to Hermione who was semiconscious.

"What are-"

Harry quickly wiped her memory before he hit her with another stunner spell, knocking her unconscious. He sighed as he transformed himself into a girl and dragged the unconscious girl back to her bed... 


	16. Harry and Hermione 2

_"If you had told me, that I was the cause behind all of those events, I would have told you that you were crazy."

"But now that we're here, I can't help but look back and see what I've done, and what I haven't done."

"I never wanted things to get this far."

"It was never supposed to go this far, after all it was just supposed to be a game!"

"It was supposed to be a simple game that'd be fun, but things didn't turn out that way."

"If time travel was real, I'd go back in time and stop myself from ever playing."

"I would've told myself to pay attention to the people I had met. "

"I would've told myself to be more careful, or to stop being so arrogant."

"I would've told myself to actually listen to people, don't assume things!"

"But the reality is, I know I wouldn't have listened."

"I would've carried on like nothing had changed, like nothing had mattered."

"That's the reason we're in this mess, isn't it?"

"Hey, why aren't you saying anything?"

"Are you ignoring me?"

"Do you hate me?"

"You've been staring at me for so long, I don't even know what you're thinking!"

"Please say something, anything!"

"...please...say something..."

"...I suppose you think I'm disgusting."

"That's fine."

"Even the me from yesterday is looking at the me of today with disgust."

_

 _"I suppose I deserve that, don't I?"  
_  
"Hey, when are you going to wake up?"

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Hermione Granger felt confused for a brief moment as she laid in her bed and stared up at the celling for a few minutes. After the events on the train and Sorting, she had planned to go out to the Forbidden Forest, but for some reason she found herself in her bed instead. Had she decided to take Neville's warnings seriously? She didn't think so, but then again, she couldn't be quite sure of what had happened last night. She felt as though someone had gone through her mind and had haphazardly cut away at Hermione's memories and glued the leftover pieces of her memory together. Trying to think back to that night at all caused her head to throb, and her vision swam as the room suddenly became blurry before snapping back into focus.

"Hey how long are you going to sleep?" Hermione heard one of the girls (whose name she could not remember) suddenly call out to her, "If you don't hurry and get up you'll be late for class."

Oh right, she'd almost forgotten about that. She climbed out of her bed and got ready for the day ahead of her, she'd go to class and then she'd have to-

Hermione frowned. Something felt off, before she had come to Hogwarts her level had been at 11. But now she had suddenly jumped up a few levels, to reach level 15. Had she gone to the forest anyway and found some high-level monsters to take out? She searched through her bag, but the only loot she had was about a dozen wedding rings, one of which belonged to her parents. Hermione's confusion only grew more as the day went on, because through all her classes it seemed as though Harry was oddly concerned about her for some strange reason.

When she had sat down in a seat during her next class, Transfiguration, Harry had immediately sat next to her when Neville had shown up.

"Hey Hermione," Harry had said, "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine, why are you asking?" Hermione said.

"Oh it's just that you look a little pale," Harry said, "Did you sleep well?"

"Yes I-" Hermione winced as her head throbbed again and her vision began to blur again. "Ngh!"

"Hermione are you sure you're okay?" Harry said as he looked at her with concern, "You don't look so good..."

"I'm fine Harry," Hermione said as the pain subsided, "There's nothing wrong with me, I've just got a little headache."

"Oh, well that's nothing a medicinal herb can't fix, right?" Harry said, "Here I have some on me right now, let me get one for you."

Harry reached into his bag and pulled out a medicinal herb and held it out towards Hermione, who immediately began to feel much better after a green...

...bolt of energy flew from the professor's wand and struck Hermione in the chest. She fell to the ground as though she were a rag doll as the spell connected, her heart stopped beating and her glazed over eyes stared blankly up at the night sky...

"Hermione, you're shaking." Harry said as he put a hand on her shoulder and turned to Professor McGonagall who had just walked into the room.

"Professor, Hermione isn't feeling well, I'm going to take her to the infirmary." Harry then grabbed Hermione's hand and brought her out of the room and into the hallway. Once they were at a good distance, he stopped and pinned Hermione against the wall.

"Alright, what do you remember?" Harry said as he kept her pinned against the wall, "I'm on a time limit here, so I need to know which version of you came back with me."

"Wha-what are you talking about?" Hermione said as her head throbbed once more, "W-would you please let me go, you're starting to hurt me..."

Harry tsked as he let Hermione fall to the floor, "Damn it, I chose the wrong save slot."

"The wrong save slot?" Hermione asked as she stood up "Wait does that mean-"

"Obliviate."

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Hermione blinked as she suddenly found herself lying down on a bed with white sheets.

"Well now, you're finally awake." The Hogwarts nurse, Madam Pomfrey said as she walked over to Hermione, "Mr. Potter will be relieved to know that you're awake."

"He will?" Hermione asked.

"Mhm, he practically carried you the whole way here," Madam Pomfrey said, "You'd never guess it, given how skinny he is, but it seems Mr. Potter is rather strong."

"I think you're lucky to have a friend as caring as Mr. Potter."

And while Hermione wanted to agree, a small part of her was doubtful that she could even call him a 'friend', though she had no idea why she felt that way... 


	17. Harry

Harry's backstory wasn't one he particularly liked to look back on. While yes, his parents getting killed by the evil wizard lord archetype was pretty standard for some JRPG plot, the events that had happened afterwards weren't what he would describe as "fun". He'd gotten dropped on his Uncle and Aunt's doorstep in the middle of the night, and things had progressed from there. His life with the Dursley's wasn't what one could call "healthy", given that for a majority of his life he was told he was a useless waste of space, and had to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. Harry had gone through some pretty rough times, and he thought things couldn't get any better-but then he found out that magic was real.

He finally had something he could be proud of and he was even famous too which he didn't really care about at the time, but later on he found out that it had its certain uses. He'd met Ron, his first friend in the Wizarding World, and the two had gotten along pretty well. They'd gotten Draco to leave them alone, after he had insulted Ron, and after he left Hermione Granger appeared.

At first, he didn't really know what to make of her, but he quickly found out that she could be annoying. She was always spouting out things about levels and grinding, and at the time he had no idea of what those words even meant. She'd always drag Neville around with her wherever she went, meaning the two of them were practically inseparable. Over the course of the year, she ended up costing Gryffindor quite a bit of points after she 'accidentally' wandered to close to the forest to try and grind.

That hadn't exactly endeared her in the eyes of her other classmates, but he doubted she even cared what they thought in the first place. It was during Halloween when everything had started to go wrong, Professor Quirrell had run into the Great Hall screeching,

"Troll! Troll in the dungeon!"

That had caused everyone to panic, and as they were brought up to the common room in a hurry, the Perfects made a quick headcount, only to find that two people were missing.

"Hey!" One of the perfects had said, "Has anyone seen Granger and Longbottom?!"

Everyone gathered in the common room shook their heads, and one of the perfects cursed.

"Well, we'll have to wait until it's over to see if we can get help," a perfect said, "Right now you need to head up to your dorms and wait until it's safe."

After a few hours had passed, it was determined to be safe enough to leave their dorms. The perfects immediately went to the professors to see if they could find Hermione and Neville, and it didn't take more than an hour to find Neville crouched in the third-floor corridor in the fetal position. The perfects didn't need to question him on Hermione's whereabouts, as they soon found her corpse hanging limply in the jaws of the Cerberus.

Once the news broke out that a student was killed by a creature Dumbledore had knowingly brought into Hogwarts, the media had a field day with the school. They'd stay camped outside the school, and constantly ask the students questions about Hermione, or about how they felt about the murder that was indirectly caused by Dumbledore. It was during this time when Dumbledore was distracted, that Quirrell had decided on his next move. He had snuck back up to the third-floor corridor and had attempted to get past the Cerberus, though he wasn't counting on an unlucky Neville being on the third floor. Quirrell had shot the killing curse at Neville, if only to get rid of a witness, and then he had failed to get the philosopher's stone.

The next day, Hermione Granger walked into the great hall, looking no worse for wear since the last time since they had seen her broken body. Everyone had freaked out as Hermione simply explained that her parents had brought her to a church where she'd gotten resurrected. Of course, that still made little sense to Harry, how could you get resurrected if you went to a church? Then Hermione had asked where Neville was, and no one had really wanted to answer her, but Harry built up the courage and told her the truth.

"Ah, I see." Hermione said, her expression had become unreadable as she left for the Gryffindor dorms.

Everyone had started to handle carefully, as though she were a bomb that could go off at any minute, though for her part she seemed rather stable. Then Harry's first match had begun, and he had nearly been thrown off his broom and killed, but he had somehow managed to stay alive. After that, Professor Snape's body had been found in his office, a large hole had been burned through his chest, exposing the shattered bones that made up his ribs. People had begun to get paranoid, after all there had been two murders within the span of a few weeks. The only one who didn't seem disturbed at all was Hermione, in fact she was rather cold about the whole thing.

Harry guessed he probably should've noticed something wrong by then, but he hadn't really thought on it too much. It didn't seem logical in his mind that Hermione would just go up to someone and fire a hole through their chest, but, that was exactly what happened. A few days later, cracks had begun to appear, which made Harry feel uncomfortable for some reason. When he had told Ron about them, he had looked at Harry as though he had gone crazy.

"What are you talking about?" Ron had asked, "I don't see any cracks on the wall, are you sure you're okay?"

Harry had felt he was going crazy as he watched people disappear through the cracks, and before long people had started to notice the cracks as well. There was an uneasy sense of dread that hung over all of them, as the cracks got wider and more people began to disappear, until it had only been Harry, Hermione, Dumbledore, a few students, and Quirrell left. It was at that point where Hermione confronted Quirrell,

"You killed him, didn't you?" She had asked in a low voice.

"Killed who?" Quirrell had said, "I've killed a lot of people, you're going to have to be more specific."

Where'd his stutter go? Harry wondered as Hermione clenched her fists.

"My friend, Neville, you killed him, didn't you?" She asked, "It was either you or Snape, or did you both work together to do it?"

"Neville? Oh, you mean the little brat on the third floor!"

Quirrell laughed, "What does it matter now, the world's going to end soon?" he smirked, "Or are you going to try and avenge him-?!"

Hermione quickly grabbed Quirrell by the throat and lifted him into the air, and Harry wondered how a girl could easily hold up an older man who probably weighed more that 200 pounds.

"Hahahahaha!" Hermione laughed as Qurirrell harshly kicked at her as his face became blue.

"You're really stupid, you know that?" Hermione said before she squeezed, and a loud cracking sound echoed through the hall as she then dropped Quirrell's lifeless body to the ground. The few students who were left turned to run, but were then sucked up by a crack that had formed underneath them and had rapidly begun to spread.

The last thing Harry heard before the world went dark, was Hermione's insane laughter...

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He wasn't too sure what had happened after that, all he could see around him was darkness. He suddenly found that he couldn't breathe, and he frantically looked for a way out of the situation he had found himself in. And then he saw a bright light shine through the darkness, he reached out towards the light, and grabbed it. A flash of light surrounded him, and he suddenly found himself on the train again.

It was at that point, when Harry began to notice numbers floating above everyone's heads, along with things called 'Stats' that he could see. It was at that moment that Harry had suddenly gained knowledge about all sorts of video games, and had learned that his power was the ability to 'Save' and 'Load'. Events had played themselves out like they had did during the first time around, though this time he could see the names of the spells Hermione was using, and he had gained enough experience to get to Level 12 after Hermione had defeated Pettigrew.

Harry had been confused though and wasn't prepared enough to stop the events of the second loop, he had 'procured' specific spells from a certain potion master, which had meant dealing with this loop was a bit easier, but this time...this time he would end the loop. This time he was prepared, at least that's what he had thought. Once Quirrell had come in screeching about the troll, Harry had immediately headed up to the third-floor corridor, and waited in the room with the Cerberus for Hermione and Neville to show up...

But they never did, which confused Harry as he opened the door...and found that Neville and Hermione were both on the ground, dead. 


	18. Speedrunning

"Now, now Mr. Potter what are you doing up here?" Professor Quirrell said as he twirled his wand in his hand, "Shouldn't you be in your dorm by now?"

"..." Harry pulled out his wand from his pocket and glared at Quirrell who seemed to take his time as he walked over to Harry. Professor Quirrell gasped as he saw the bodies of Hermione and Neville lying on the floor,

"Oh my Mr. Potter, what are those corpses doing here?!" Quirrell said in an overdramatic tone, "They weren't here when you first came up here, were they?"

"No." Harry said as he took a step back and launched a spell at Quirrell, who easily batted it to the side.

"Well it's a good thing I caught up to you then," Quirrell said as a grin began to form on his face, "Who would've guessed that the boy-who-lived would turn out to be a murder?"

"Well you've certainly gotten confident," Harry said, "Did you grow a spine after you murdered your own students?"

"Now Mr. Potter, haven't you learned it isn't nice to throw accusations at someone with no proof?"

Quirrell quickly cast a killing curse and sent it at Harry who quickly dodged to the side, the curse brushed past him as it slammed into the wall.

"Well now, you've put points into your agility stat haven't you?" Professor Quirrell asked, "Did you stock up on seeds of agility?"

"Oh, you can tell?" Harry asked as he dodged another spell, "I guess you've stopped messing around?"

"Oh no, I'm not really taking you seriously yet," Quirrell said as he smiled. Harry suddenly felt a force ram into his chest, and he was sent flying into the air before he crashed back down to the ground. He started to find it really difficult to breath, as it felt as though someone was forcibly squeezing his lungs to get all the air out.

"Well, now I'm taking things seriously." Quirrell said as he pointed his wand at Harry's forehead. "I suppose it's time for you to die, it's been fun Mr. Potter, but I'm afraid it's game over for you."

The was a flash of green light, and then Harry had died...

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He woke up in a black void and could barely see anything around him. He sighed in relief as he saw his save point glittering in the void and reached out to grab it...

Clap, clap, clap

But the sound of someone clapping drew his attention away from the save point. He turned around to see that Professor Snape was sarcastically clapping his hands.

"Bravo Mr. Potter," Snape said, "You didn't even make it past the toll incident, it's pathetic how low your score's gotten."

"What are you doing here?" Harry said, "Wait how are you even here in the first place?"

"I've always been here Potter, you've just never paid any attention to me," Snape said, "As for why I'm here, well I wanted to congratulate you on failing for the third time in a row."

"Thank you so much." Harry said.

"You're welcome."

"You know I was-"

"Yes, I know Potter, I'm not an idiot like you." Snape said. "I suppose you're going to reload your save, and rush in like the knight you think you are?"

"I don't think I'm a knight," Harry said, "But yeah I've got to reload if I-"

"Are you planning on spending the rest of your life in a time loop?" Professor Snape asked.

"Of course, I'm not I'm trying to fix the loop," Harry frowned, "That's why I've been reloading so many times."

"You know you'll never get anywhere at that rate," Professor Snape said as Harry turned to reach for the save slot.

"What?" Harry asked as he turned around.

"Unless you get rid of the source of the loop, you'll be doomed to repeat it." A priest said as he walked towards Harry. "That's why I said you'll never get anywhere at the rate you're going."

"Where did Snape go?" Harry asked as he searched around the void for the professor.

"I'm right here," Snape said as he suddenly appeared in the same spot as the priest had been in moments before, "What's wrong with you Potter, is your vision failing you?"

"But I just saw a priest!" Harry shouted.

Snape rose one of his eyebrows, "A priest?" Snape asked, "Do you have the sudden urge to go to church Potter?"

"No I-"

"Focus on what I'm saying to you," The priest said as he appeared where Snape had been, "You need to find the source of the loop and cut it out, like you would do to a weed."

"Wait a second," Harry said as he backed away, "You're not Snape or the priest, are you?"

"Of course I'm not them," A duplicate of Harry suddenly showed up in the priest's place, "I'm you."

"...Are you messing with me?"

"I was back then, but I'm not right now." The duplicate of Harry said, "Look I'm not you, or Snape, or the priest, though those are characters I roleplay as."

"Roleplay, what are you talking about?" Harry asked.

"Uh, it's unnecessarily complex, and we don't have enough time right now," the duplicate of Harry said, "In simpler terms, I'm the 'Gamemaster', and I watch over the 'Game'"

"Wait, you mean you're the one who's causing the loops?" Harry said as he began to get angry, "You're the one who's been messing with everything?"

"Well when you put it that way, it seems really harsh." The Gamemaster said as he rubbed the back of his head, "But I guess in a way I'm responsi-"

Harry punched the Gamesmaster in the face, causing them to jerk back and clutch their nose.

"Okay, that was really uncalled for," The Gamemaster complained as he rubbed his nose, "But I can't say I didn't deserve that."

"You deserve a lot more than that!" Harry shouted as he clutched the front of the Gamemaster's shirt and dragged him towards him, "You've been messing with our lives!"

"I know I have, and I'm sorry," The Gamemaster said, "But right now there are more important things to talk about."

"Like what?"

"Like how we're going to save your friends," The Gamemaster said, "You see there's a 'bug' in the coding, that's what's causing the loop, if you get rid of it you can stop the loop."

"What do you mean there's a 'bug' in the coding?" Harry asked.

"I mean exactly that, there's a 'bug' that's been running around and messing the 'game' up," The Gamemaster said, "They've messed up the script so much, I can't tell what's going on anymore."

"I can't fix it myself, I've already died twice trying to fix it, and I'm not too keen on dying a third time," The Gamemaster said, "Which is why I need you to fix it for me."

"How am I supposed to fix a 'bug'?" Harry asked, "I'm not even experienced enough to code!"

"It's actually pretty simple," The Gamemaster said, "All you have to do is kill the person behind all of this, luckily they'll never expect it if it's you doing the killing."

"Who are you talking about?" Harry asked, "How am I supposed to kill someone, I've never-"

"It's easy, all you have to do is blow a hole through their chest," The Gamemaster interrupted as he handed Harry a gun, "I'll even turn off certain features off so you can't miss, all you have to do is point and shoot."

"I don't even know who I'm going to shoot!" Harry protested. "And why do I have to kill them, can't I just talk it out with them?"

"No that's not going to work," The Gamemaster said, "They're way past that point."

"But I-"

"Oh and if you're wondering who they are, it should be pretty simple," The Gamemaster said, "They've practically been inseparable from you since day one."

"That doesn't give me much to go on, who could that possibly-"

Harry blinked as he suddenly found himself on the train... 


	19. Endgame

Harry thought to himself as the events played themselves out exactly as they had done since the first loop. The words of the Gamemaster echoed in his mind,

 _"Oh and if you're wondering who they are, it should be pretty simple," The Gamemaster had said, "They've practically been inseparable from you since day one."_

"Inseparable from me, huh?" Harry said to himself as Hermione turned Pettigrew back into his normal form. Thinking back on it, there must have been many clues that he'd just missed over his past runs, but he'd been so busy trying to keep reality from falling apart that he just didn't pay any attention. If he thought back to the first loop he could notice an oddity that happened during the first loop that didn't happen during the third.

And that was Hermione's resurrection, or to be more specific, it would have to be the time it had taken her to resurrect. In the first loop, it had taken her a few days to resurrect and find her way back to Hogwarts, but in the third loop it had taken her months. Was there a reason for the time delay? If he thought about it a bit harder, it made some sense when he put the Gamemaster into consideration. During the first loop he had been roleplaying as Professor Snape, and after he had died, reality had started to fall apart. That had attributed to Hermione's sanity slippage, which had led her to snap Quirrell's neck in the Great Hall.

In the third loop though, it had taken her much longer to resurrect, and when she did she had suddenly gained wings along with a boost to her powers. Her sanity had probably slipped after being trapped in limbo for so long, resulting in the girl he could barely recognize. During the fourth loop, the three of them had died about a few minutes apart from each other, so until he knew what happened in the second loop, he'd have to leave that out. Since he was now in the fourth loop, the chances of him catching the 'bug' was pretty high, given that he knew they existed, but he still didn't know what they were up to.

If he had to guess, there had probably been a reason behind the delayed resurrection, in fact it was probably due to the 'bug'. The reason the bug had to delay it was because they knew the Gamemaster was on to them, and they knew that the Gamemaster was probably hiding somewhere so he could avoid getting killed again. Chances are that the Gamemaster had gotten killed regardless, leading to the worst breakdown of reality that he had ever seen.

There was also the curious fact that the 'bug' had decided to take advantage of Hermione and use her to kill the Gamemaster. It was a bit odd that they hadn't even considered using Harry to comit the crimes but had just used Hermione. There was probably a reason for that, which was the fact that at the time the 'bug' had no idea Harry had even gotten powers. There was only one time the 'bug' could've seen him use his powers, and that was during the third loop.

Harry hadn't done anything up until he and Ron had gone to search for Neville in the Forbidden Forest, which is where he had used his powers in full display of the 'bug'. Which is why Quirrell must've targeted Harry immediately after killing Hermione and Neville, the 'bug' must have messed with the second loop in order to give Quirrell the edge he needed to kill him.

So that meant that out of all the people that were close to Harry, there was only two people who could possibly be the 'bug'. Hermione and Neville could be instantly counted out, Hermione was dead at the time, and Neville had been stuck in a pit. Which left himself...and Ron. Harry found himself getting jolted out of his thoughts as Hermione blew Pettigrew through the door, surprising Percy who had just decided to knock on the door.

"Oh, hey Percy!" Ron yelled, "Did you know that Scabbers was actually a fat man in disguise?"

Percy's eye twitched as he looked on the man who was dressed in rags on the ground, and then back to Ron.

"Yeah, I had that same look on my face too," Ron said, "Especially when I realized he's probably slept with most of us."

There was something...off about that exchange. Ron was taking things a bit too lightly, given that his pet rat had suddenly transformed into a fugitive running from the law. A normal person would be a bit more freaked out, or at the very least show other emotions than the ones Ron currently had. Ron frowned as he looked at Harry who was silently staring at him,

"Are you alright mate?" Ron asked, "You look a bit pale there."

"No I'm fine," Harry said as he looked away from Ron, "Anyway, what should we do with Pettigrew?"

"I think we should call him Wormtail," Hermione said, "I think Wormtail's a much cooler name."

"Fine then, what should we do with Wormtail?" Harry asked.

"Why should we do anything?" Ron said as the train slowed down, "We should probably just wait for the Aurors to get here."

"Ron's right," Percy said, "It's kind of dangerous to leave him out there, but I'm sure someone has contacted the Aurors."

"But what if no one has?" Harry asked, "What do we do then?"

"Um," Percy bit his tongue as he tried to come up with an answer, "I-I'm sure that someone will contact the Aurors."

"Hey Harry, you don't want to push him too hard or else-" Ron backed up as Harry brought up the gun he had stashed away in his pocket. "H-Hey, let's not get too violent here." Ron said as he backed away from Harry.

"Seriously Harry, you should put down the gun." Ron said. "I bet you don't even know how to shoot it properly."

"Ron," Harry said, "How do you even know what a gun is?" 


	20. Final Boss

"...So you figured it out, huh?" Ron said as he relaxed, "Took you long enough."

"Um, what is going on?" Neville asked as he looked from Harry to Ron, "I don't get what you're talking about, shouldn't the Aurors be showing up by now?"

"Oh they won't," Ron said, "I've cut off the train from 'reality', so no one's going to come."

"You've cut us off from reality?" Hermione asked, "You're not really making any sense, as far as I know there isn't any spell that can do that."

"Of course, there is, it's called coding." Ron said, "Not that you'd ever figure that out Ms. Protagonist, I doubt you could even comprehend even the basics at this point in time."

"I-I'm sure that someone will contact the Aurors." Percy said "I-I'm sure that someone will contact the Aurors."

"Oh, I forgot about him," Ron said before he pulled out a gun and shot Percy in the head, "Man that guy can really get on your nerves, who needs tutorial guides in video games anyway?"

"Y-you just killed him!" Hermione shouted.

"Way to state the obvious!" Ron said as he sarcastically clapped his hands, "Keep it up and maybe you'll gain an extra boost to your intelligence."

"Hey, my intelligence is already pretty high," Hermione said. "But you just killed him because you could!"

"Oh, so suddenly I'm the bad one when I decide to kill someone?" Ron said, "What about you Ms. Protagonist?"

"What about me?"

"Oh, that's right, you don't remember!" Ron said as he snapped his fingers, "There you go, I don't think I need to hold onto your memories any longer."

"Ngh!" Hermione clutched her head as her memories began to return, she remembered dying in the forest and on the third corridor floor, she remembered getting resurrected each time she had died, and she remembered the people she had killed. She clutched a hand to her mouth as she felt like throwing up.

"Ah that's right, you're not as pure as you'd like yourself to be," Ron taunted Hermione, "In a way, you're even worse than I am, and that's saying something."

"You're worse than her, because you forced her to do it," Harry said as he kept his gun trained on Ron, "If you hadn't messed with her, she would have never have done it."

"I didn't 'force' her to do anything," Ron said, "I just...nudged her in the right direction, she did the rest herself."

"Just shut up already!" Harry shouted.

"Or what, you're going to shoot me?" Ron said, "It's not very 'heroic' for a hero to kill someone over the things they say."

"Yeah I'm going to shoot you," Harry said, "You've done nothing but make us miserable during these loops, you deserve to die."

"You say that, but your hands are shaking," Ron smirked as he looked at Harry, "Chances are you don't even have the guts to shoot me."

"I-I-"

"You know, I bet the Gamemaster didn't even tell you the whole story, did he?" Ron asked before he shook his head, "Actually I doubt he would, it wouldn't do for his image."

"What are you talking about?" Harry asked.

Ron sighed, "You see the Gamemaster...is an absolute moron." he said. "At first, he wanted to make an RPG, but then he found out he couldn't make a world map worth a damn, and he had no idea how to make sprite art."

"Then he decided to use the basic assets for his game, and decided to make his own music, but then he found out he had no idea how to compose a song," Ron continued. "And after all that time and effort, he decided to go ahead with his game, 'Hermione Granger the Mage.'"

"Wait that's..." Hermione began to say, but Ron cut her off as he continued his monologue,

"So, he drafted a basic story, plucked a few characters he liked from the books he liked and got to work," Ron said. "And in that story, he made sure there would be four specific main characters as party members."

"The 'Hero' would be Harry, the 'Mage' would be Hermione, the 'Cleric' would be Neville, and the Knight?" Ron chuckled, "The knight would be Malfoy."

"Malfoy?" Harry asked, confused, "Why would he be the 'Knight', if anything it would make more sense if it was you."

"Of course it would!" Ron shouted, "But he didn't think about that, he'd already had his mind set on Malfoy for some reason, even though _I_ was the first character he created through the generator!"

"Instead, I was to be a temporary party member, and the comedy relief," Ron said, "I was just a way to teach the player how to set up tactics in their game, after that I'd get tossed to the side for Malfoy."

"When he tested his game, he didn't notice the coding error he had made," Ron said, "And that let me see everything, it let me know about everything he was doing."

"An error?" Neville asked.

"You've seen it, haven't you Harry?" Ron asked as he ignored Neville, "The 'cracks' you saw during the first and third loops?"

"Those were actually errors?" Harry asked, "That's why everyone started to disappear?"

"Yes, he's so incompetent that whenever he went back to try and fix it things just got worse," Ron said, "Assets would no longer run properly, characters would flat out vanish, it was a complete and utter mess."

"Anyway, after I had learned about my purpose I got angry," Ron continued, "I thought to myself, 'Why am _I_ the only one who doesn't deserve a chance?' and 'What makes _them_ more important than me?'"

"That's when I accidentally messed with the code, and I ended up getting Draco's power." Ron continued, "And I realized, why should I play by _his_ rules, when _I_ have the power to do what I want?"

"And I'm guessing that's when you started messing with the game?" Harry asked.

"My first plan was to kill Hermione or Neville and take their spots," Ron said, "But that didn't work out as well as I thought, since the Gamemaster found out about what I was doing, and he came to stop me."

"So I moved on to a different plan," Ron grinned, "I'd break his characters, to the point that when he eventually released the game, every single one of you would have been a horrible character to play as."

Ron then pointed to Hermione, "Imagine, you're playing as the protagonist when suddenly you get killed by a level 20 monster and have to wait for an hour until the game decides you can resurrect," Ron said as he pointed to Neville. "And you suddenly get switched to the cleric who doesn't even have a weapon, and you have to face off against a Level 15 NPC that wants to kill you."

"And then you reach the 'Hero' who's a coward and misses every hit, and finally you play as the knight, only to find out he's a racist piece of shit." Ron said, "Who would play a game like that? It'd utterly destroy the Gamemaster's reputation, heck I doubt he'd even make another game ."

"So that's your goal, to ruin our lives because you're not a main party member?" Harry asked, "That's remarkably petty."

"I don't need to be judged by a waste of processing power like you." Ron said as he pointed his gun at Harry, "All I need, is for you to die!"

Harry heard the sound of a loud explosion, and soon everything went dark...


	21. The end

"Ngh...agh..."

Harry opened his eyes to see that he had immediately dived to the floor, blood had begun to seep onto the floor. His vision swam for a brief while as he looked at the blood, and at first, he thought he'd been wounded. His heart hammered in his chest as he thought that it was all over, that Ron would take control of him and use him for his own agenda. But then, he realized that the blood on the floor wasn't his at all, it seemed to be someone else's blood. As he pushed himself to his feet, he saw that Ron was clutching at the hole that had formed in his chest.

"Ng...agh.." Ron coughed up a lump of blood which landed on the floor, and slumped to his knees. Behind Ron, Hermione had her staff out, and had it held towards Ron, her eyes were wide and her breathing was erratic as she looked at Ron.

"D-damn it..." Ron rasped, "Wh-why the hell did you...?"

"You...you were going to kill him!" Hermione shouted, "Did you think I would just let you do that?!"

"Well...I didn't think...you had it in you-!" Ron coughed and more blood spewed from his mouth and onto the floor. "I-I shouldn't have...turned my back on you..."

"Yeah, that was very stupid of you," The Gamemaster said as he walked into the room, "Did you forget, she's the protagonist, letting people die isn't in the code I made for her."

"Heh...of course you'd come here to brag." Ron laughed before breaking into a fit of coughs. "You're so damn arrogant."

"Eh, yeah I guess that's true." The Gamemaster said as he walked over to Harry and picked up his gun, "So any last words?"

"Screw you."

"Well that's not very nice," The Gamemaster said as he shot Ron, sending his lifeless body crashing onto the ground, "I don't think I programed you to be that rude."

Suddenly, Harry heard what sounded like gears turning, and soon the Aurors rushed into their compartment.

"S-sir?!" One of the Aurors shouted in surprise, "What are you doing here?!"

"Oh, I've been here for a while," The Gamemaster said to the Aurors, "Did you have trouble getting into the train or something?"

"Well it was difficult for us to even find the train," an Auror said, before they saw the bodies of Percy and Ron lying on the ground, "S-Sir what happened here?!"

"Oh, it turns out that Mr. Weasley here tried to kill Mr. Potter," The Gamemaster said, "He flew into a psychotic rage when I saved Mr. Potter, and decided to kill his brother before ending his life."

The Gamemaster sighed dramatically, "It's such a shame, what has the youth come to these days?"

"Anyway, I'll need you to move these bodies out of here," The Gamemaster said, "And let their families know what happened here."

The Aurors saluted The Gamemaster before carrying the two bodies out of the compartment. As soon as the Aurors left the Gamemaster dropped the smile he had been wearing and turned to Harry, Hermione, and Neville.

"So, it looks like this is the end it's been a rough time for me, but things turned out for the better." The Gamemaster said.

"Two people are dead," Harry said, "How does that make things any better?"

"Okay so we had to make some sacrifices," The Gamemaster said, "But it was for the better, now I can actually finish the game I was working on."

"Is that all you care about?" Harry asked as he clenched his fist, "Is your game the only thing that matters to you?!"

"Well if the game gets out I'll get some fame," The Gamemaster shrugged, "So yeah, I think it's what really matters to me."

"What about Ron, he-"

"-was a rogue AI Harry," The Gamemaster said, "Everything he ranted about was insane and petty, so what if he wasn't a main character? It doesn't give him the right to screw with everything I worked so hard on."

"...So that's why you wanted him dead then." Harry said as he felt as though he were staring at the Gamemaster for the first time. "You just cared more about your work then you did about us."

"No offense Harry, but you're not even real," The Gamemaster said, "You're just a character from a book, and in this instance you're nothing but lines of code."

"You're an asshole."

"Yeah, I've had several people I've met call me that."

"So what happens now?" Hermione asked. "What are we going to do next?"

"Well now that Ron's been taken care of, the game should run smoothly this time," The Gamemaster said, "So I'll have to wipe out your save data, so you all get a fresh start."

The Gamemaster then turned to leave, but then stopped and turned back to look at Harry and the others.

"You know," The Gamemaster said, "I'm kind of glad I chose you all to be the main characters."

Harry suddenly began to feel really tired, and he collapsed onto the ground...

.

.

.

The sound of the train's horn woke Harry up, and he rubbed at his eyes as he sat up straight. He looked out the window to see the passing scenery of sprawling green fields. He looked away to see that a silver platter filled to the brim with sweets laid half uneaten. He wasn't sure why he had decided to buy enough sweets for two people, but he was rapidly beginning to regret his choice. For some reason, he felt rather odd sitting here in the room alone, and he found himself wishing that he had taken up Malfoy on his offer. Suddenly, the door to the compartment swung open and a girl dressed in odd clothing stepped into the room, dragging an awkward looking boy with sandy hair behind her.

"Hello there, my name is Hermione Granger, and this is Neville Longbottom," The girl who had introduced herself and her friend said, "We're on a very important quest, have you seen a toad?"

A/N- Thank you to everyone who liked reading my story, it's been a pretty wild ride, but this is the end... 


End file.
